


Nightglow

by Moami



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Horror, M/M, Minor Character Death, Panic Attacks, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-02-14 07:38:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 56,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2183442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moami/pseuds/Moami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how I found happiness in the darkest of nights.<br/>This is the story of how my future shattered into millions of tiny pieces.<br/>This is the chapter of my life where I was forced to go back and face everything I fear from the bottom of my scared pounding heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flare

**Author's Note:**

> I have been writing for two months now and this story will crush my heart and soul into the depths of hell. This is it, the first long Jeanmarco fic ever. And I intend to give you tears and laughter and feelings with this. Also English isn't my native language so don't have mercy when criticising me - I know there's a lot unperfect stuff here. 
> 
> Inspired by [ maggins' ](http://www.maggins.tumblr.com//) incredible fanart of [ Starchild!Marco ](http://maggins.tumblr.com/post/81724262190). More fanart [ here ](http://maggins.tumblr.com/post/95319596913).  
> Let the journey begin.

**“Es gibt Wunder, die müssen im Dunkeln geschehen.“**  
Some miracles have to happen in the dark.

_\- Walter Moers: Rumo and His Miraculous Adventures_

 

* * *

 

I am afraid of the dark.

I mean, who wouldn’t be? Come on, admit it. Think about the last time you had to go out at night and were alone on an empty street. Well? There you go.

Humans are so saturated with light and sunrays that we forget about the night, our old enemy.

It doesn’t matter if you are a simple farmer planting wheat, or a merchant selling apples on the market, or if you are the King himself, sitting in a golden hall full of wealth. I think it’s kinda in our nature. Humanity’s nature. We invented candles and oil lamps to keep the monsters away. And don’t you tell me about those under my bed as a child, I know they weren’t real!

But others are. There are monsters that are as real as you and I.

We need light to live and we depend on the fickle flames of wax-heavy candles to survive whatever lures out there at night, hidden under thick shadows and travelling with the whispering wind that rattles at your room’s window just as the last church bell bellows twelve times.

The darkness is as real as I am, and everything that comes with it is, too.

You never know what hides in the corners of your room, in the silent alleys you pass at night or in the shortcut you take home through the backyards of the slaughterhouses, stepping into lakes of you-don’t-wanna-know that squishes and splashes up your ankles and oh-god-please-no that crunches and whimpers under your footsteps.

You don’t know what will happen when you reach out into the silent black of your wardrobe (what if something reaches back?) or when you step into a murky puddle after it rains and you hope it’s only water, please let it be water - you have to get home quickly before the next downpour, so you run and can’t avoid all of those suspicious puddles on your way and have to jump over reflections of the night sky on your way.

Anything could arise from the water at your feet or the abandoned market stand to your left, where the chilly night air moves the remains of a ragged old curtain back and forth and you shudder when you remember that nobody dares to move the stand away or asks whereto the owner disappeared years ago.

The night will come right at you, it will jump into your neck from behind and insinuate unspoken horrors into your ear and you know that you won’t sleep right for days afterwards.

And if you fall asleep, glad and relieved that the calm of dreams is at least back for you – hah!

Nightmares.

Wild sweaty wake-ups where you jerk up and nearly jump out of your own shivering skin, panting and curling into a tiny ball of helpless hiccupping under your blanket.

So yeah, the dark is fucking scary as hell.

It’s not only the monsters in your fantasies when you are a child.

I’m fucking eighteen years old. I am a grown man.

And I have no problem with jumping into puddles. Also I don’t have a wardrobe; that would be useless because I only own three sets of clothing and a worn silver necklace.

But right now I’ll tell you something else and you better listen carefully, got it?

Because this is where my story begins.

And I will tell it to you if you like it or not. It has to be heard by someone.

I don’t care if you think it’s unrealistic or full of sheer impossibilities or filled to brim with magic and too many damn twinkling stars. I don’t care because fuck, that’s just the way it begins.

That’s also how it ends but we aren’t quite there yet.

And the stars are the best part.

There is just one more thing, a tiny side note I have to tell you before we begin.

I’m an ordinary man and that’s a damn good thing in Shiganshina.

You do your work, get a nice bowl of porridge as dinner when you come home after wrecking your ass at work and sleep in a creaking bed while the horses neigh outside under your window. In the kingdom of Sina and its capital Shiganshina, you can die and live an average civilian’s life.

Maybe a disease will kill you or the fact that you can’t afford expensive medicine from the few good doctors in town.

But hey, nothing’s perfect!

Doctors are only human as well. They are too busy keeping the nobles alive because that’s what brings the money in and so the townspeople, me and all the others somehow try to get along without any grave mistakes or sticking our noses into someone else’s business.

It is fucking impossible to avoid trouble when you were born and raised knowing that you are, in fact, the worst mistake ever.

So here we go, the reason why I am telling you about darkness and all of this.

It’s none of the things above that run shivers down my spine when it gets dark.

It is neither the monsters that could appear and eat me up, nor the creepy noises that somehow appear everywhere as soon as it dawns at the horizon.

I can do anything at night.

I can run around the streets and make fun of the guards who then chase me to the next corner until they are tired. I outrun them every time, they are too fat and stuffed with beer to get me.

I can climb up to the rooftops and sit there, look at the sky and count stars until I get tired.

I have no problem with strange noises and sleep like a rock where other people huddle in a corner and bawl their eyes out about leaves rustling in the wind or owls howling in the distance.

But I can’t leave the fucking town at night.

Because that means walking down the main street and turning to my right.

It means leaving the comfortable warmth of windows flickering with candles behind them where people have dinner in front of a fireplace. It means following the dirty brick road to Shiganshina’s gates where the guards let you pass.

Getting out is no problem, but the way back is far more complicated.

And there it is. The reason why I am stuck here forever and won’t leave this stupid boring place in a million years.

The Forest of Trost.

Don’t fucking laugh! It’s a big forest and believe me, I know best.

I know everything about this place, from its impossibly old trees and the leaves rustling day and night.

It’s like voices whispering in your head - I heard people who once entered it never returned. Not even their skeletons were found.

That was centuries ago, though, and today everything is going its normal way, people walk through the paved paths of the forest without any second thoughts or fear about monsters and the screaming dread inside it.

I believe in the stories more than I believe in God or life or the sun rising in the morning.

I saw it all.

I have been in there once.

And I swore to myself that I would never go back.

I swore it by the blood pumping in my veins, the beating of my anxious heart that keeps me alive.

I swore on everything holy and cursed and on the thick scar tissue that one night left on my body.

I thought I would never return. And just like a stubborn mulish horse that refuses to ever carry a rider on its proud wild back, life threw me off its saddle and chased me, claws out and dripping with blood, back into the Forest from where I once came.

So this is where we start.

The Forest is what started all of this and together with that ugly thing called darkness those two hatched a plan to flip everything upside down in the matter of a sole night.

My name is Jean Kirschstein and I am the only person who returned from the Forest of Trost alive.

I swore to never see the inside again. That worked out really well for more than eight years.

I am alive and I learned my lesson.

I stay away from any trouble with the Forest and all things obscure and strange.

My future life will be peaceful.

I have a good job and soon I will be a blacksmith and marry an averagely pretty woman and have averagely adorable kids. I will have to wipe snot off their noses and teach my sons how to forge a sword. I will die with a loving family around me and a wife crying by my side -

Ha. Yeah, right. Forget the wife and kids shit, nobody would come closer to me than two feet. The have a damn good reason to keep the hell away from me, just like everyone does. You'll see.

This is the story of how my future shattered into millions of tiny pieces.

This is how I found happiness in the darkest of nights.

A story about freckles that are stars and stars that are not freckles but real glowing spots in the sky. About bad poems and bells and velvet, over and over again.

And this is how a shy boy redeemed me from demons of my past and how I hopefully saved and protected him back a little bit.

This is the chapter of my life where I was forced to go back and face everything I fear from the bottom of my scared pounding heart.

 

* * *

 

The Saturday my life crashes headfirst into chaos already starts out like shit 

I wake up from a bucket of ice cold water being poured over me.

“ _Fuckin_ ’ – ahhh!”

There are nicer ways to get up in the morning, believe me. I jerk up and moments later another load of water drenches me from head to toes. Fuck off, I’m already awake!

As if the first downpour hasn’t already left me gasping for air because my lungs have shrunken into the size of two crumpled walnuts from the shock, thank you very much. And - oh fucking God, what is that gross smell?! Oh no. There’s a woman next to my bed whose grin is a menacing mix of angry and priggish.

“Rise and shine, yer stupid bastard!” May I introduce? Mrs. Dot, my landlady.

“What the actual fuck!” I scream at her, rubbing the water out of my eyes.

It burns like hell and soaks my hair and clothes, instantly sticking all fabric to my skin. Fucking disgusting. As soon as I can properly see again and catch a glimpse of what exactly waterlogs my bed sheets and pajamas, I let out another loud cry that shakes the walls of my small attic room.

“Are you crazy?!”

“What did you just say to me, boy?” Mrs. Dot snaps back and swings the bucket by her side, and that smile on her face is too damn content for my taste.

“You heard me damn well! You… you idiot poured the pig’s water over my bed!”

Pig water is the dirty liquid wobbling in the troughs of horses and cows down in the stables. The water they use to clear the streets of whatever the ox dropped out of their behinds.

I think there are crumbs of earth on my lips when I spit out the mouthful that I nearly swallowed and when I remember what else could be in those puddles of black pooling between my thighs, I gag and quickly throw the blanket aside.

“Get up ya lazy skunk!” Incredible. She’s not even bothered by my now dirty bed.

Croaking like the offspring of an old raven and a castrated rooster, Mrs. Dot goes on rambling. Her fat double chin wobbles dauntingly when she raises her voice to yell at me again.

“Outta the bed, will ya! Ya still owe me money for the month an’ you haven’t paid ‘til now!”

I am going to kill her. The old hag has the long-time memory of the dirty sponge that she cleans her five obnoxious children with. I jump to my feet, the bed frame creaks under the shift of my weight. I stand up and puff myself up to full height. Then I scream back at her, silent time is over.

“What do you think the fuckin’ money was for I gave you yesterday?! That was the payment, you stupid witch! And congratulations for ruining my bed with your dirty shit-ass water!” I snort and spit out another load of dirty water that has collected on my lips.

Mrs. Dot’s mouth falls open and her eyes grow bigger. She looks like some kind of fat frog, staring at me in disbelief. She’s probably trying to put some of her scarce intelligence together to process that I just called her ‘witch’ (worst insult around here).

Then her eyes flick down my body, over to the bed and she begins to quake. Alright, seems that this is my last night at the Dot’s house because now she’ll definitely throw me out.

 _“Jean Kirschstein,_ you will clean the mess you made and then get the hell out of my house! I won’t keep an obnoxious brat like you in my warm house!”

That’s fucking enough.

“I won’t clean anything.”

The way Mrs. Dot’s face pales is delicious.

“Then I will make you,” she roars and begins to swing the bucket faster.

“Oh yeah, _will_ you? Then you’ll have to fuckin’ _catch_ me before!”

Before she can beat my ass into hell’s deepest pits, I'm out of the room, snatching my trousers and shoes while ducking under her flailing arm that swings the empty bucket after me. There goes my place to sleep.

I just manage to get a hold of my shirt that I have thrown over a chair last evening and, look at me, I am out of the room and around the next corner.

“Don’t you **DARE** run away form me!”

Mrs. Dot comes stomping after me, pissing and moaning about what a lazy and ungrateful brat I am.

“Come back, you _son of a_ \- !”

“I’ll **_never_ ** come back!” It feels damn good to say those words, and the stomping of fat feet actually stops. My chance.

I make tracks and slither to a stop in front of the bathroom. Safety, thank God. I rip the door open and slam it shut, locking myself in the bath.

I only take a quick break inside, listen if she comes after me (apparently not) and then go over to stripping out of my old clothes and slipping into what I need for work: long pants with thick patches of leather everywhere to protect me from the sparks of smoldering charcoal in the smithy, a shirt that has once been white with a few ribbons dangling in the front, and my plain brown shoes that have long seen better days.

I escape through the bathroom’s small window. It’s only a quick jump down, and the cart full of hay in which I land catches me softly. I’ll never see Mrs. Dot or her stupid children again, and the thought consoles me for the loss of a home.

I reach Reiner’s place just in time, and he luckily doesn’t make a remark about how I am five minutes too late and smell like street dirt.

 

* * *

 

The best thing about working in a smithy is the fire. The worst thing about working in a smithy is also the fire.

It depends on the season whether I hate or love the fire. When I am sweating my ass off in midsummer, plowing my way through scrap metal next to glowing piles of charcoal and listening to Reiner pounding his hammer down onto a workpiece of a sword so that sparks fly, that is when I curse that damn heat into the deepest pits of hell where it belongs.

But when I sit as close to the oven as possible in winter, rubbing my hands that resemble blocks of ice and simultaneously trying to shield my red frost-bitten ears from the cold wind – that’s when I’m glad as hell about the warmth lazily rolling over my face in licking flames of red.

It’s the last half of August now, though, and that fucking asshole of a season called “midsummer” has decided to slap the whole town with a heat wave that has no equal.

“Jean, get your ass over here and help me with this!”

“One minute, be there in a second!”

I jump up from the chair where I was sorting a bucket full of scrap metal. How intelligent, Jean – couldn’t you think before you jump up like a scared cat and fuck everything up?

Now the bucket falls right off my knees when I jerk up and the content scatters all over the floor.

Fuck!

The smithy is already small enough and me spilling sharp dangerous splinters all over the place doesn’t help the work go faster. Goddammit, where did my thoughts go? Back to the darkness, once again. A thing I can’t forget, carved into the inner walls of my head it glows in big symbols of -

_“Jeaaaann!”_

“I’m right there Reiner! Fuckin’ shit…!”

I kick the pile of metal aside and stumble to my feet. Maybe, just maybe I am easy to distract. Memories are vicious little things.

Flames dance in the oven, a rectangular mould full of metal on top of them. The two old swords inside have been melting for about half an hour are probably done. The viscous metal glows a beautiful orange colour, and a few sparks sizzle up from the charcoal beneath.

Reiner stands beside the oven, a giant blond man who is all chest and bare arms. He’s also my boss and the most impressive and bulky guy I’ve ever seen, I swear. He doesn’t even wear protection pads over his shoulders anymore, but just beats out any sparks that dare to land on his enormous muscles.

Fucking badass.

I mean, that guy is twice my size both in height and his broad shoulders. Of course, the almost two years I have been working here did quite nice by my body as well. I’m not lanky anymore, not so much. I can lift a hammer.

Life goes a new path.

“You can clean up later. C’mon, gotta get this baby out and make her into a new beauty.”

Reiner grins at me, and I hurry to his side. He is always talking to his works as if they were his lover or wife. Maybe he’s making up for not having a real woman at his side by addressing dead metal with pet names. I won’t judge, Reiner’s the best smith in the whole town and I’m fucking lucky to learn at his place.

That thought gets me off my lazy ass and to his side.

But when I come to a halt next to him, about to apologize again for my daydreaming – huh? Something’s wrong. Reiner doesn’t do anything but avert his glance from me and look back into the flames. I follow his eyes, brows furrowing and –

Wait, the melted swords are still in their mould, in the oven. He hasn’t taken them out.

Does that mean – Reiner will let me do it? Out of the oven and over to the other workpieces where they’ll cool down until Reiner can form them into swords? The step of taking them out of the oven is really fucking important.

If you get the wrong temperature and they aren’t heated all through, the core will stay solid and fuck up your result – but if they’re too hot it wastes time and the charcoal we use to feed the fire. A waste of money and energy.

Either way it’s damn difficult and a delicate thing to do.

“So today you decide if we take it out now or later. You are responsible for this baby, Jean!”, Reiner laughs and his voice booms through the smithy like a thunder rolling. He holds his belly while doing so and grins from ear to ear.

“You’ll forge it and make a brand new sword out of it. Got it?”

This is – oh wow.

“You happy?”

You bet your ass. My face has to be glowing from the grin I throw back at my boss.

Reiner finally lets me help with the workpieces.

After a year of hard labour and memorizing the ways each metal has to be formed and treated, countless hours next to the oven and so many days of watching Reiner beat down his hammer onto singing swords and spears.

It’s dangerous and I could fuck up and that’s got my blood rushing in my veins. Oh man, I’m so freakin’ _excited_.

My voice is back and it hiccups into unexpected highs when I croak back a poor excuse of a reply.

“Fuck yeah! A’ight, let’s do this”, I beam like an idiot and push the sleeves of my shirt up, thrilled to the core of my fluttering heart.

Together we step closer and Reiner slaps me on the back.

“You’ll do this. ‘s alright if you fuck up, it’s just a commission for a farmer who wants his grandfather’s sword reforged.”

A memento, how fucking _great_.

I break into a huge sweat and feel the drops stream down my neck and forehead. Now I’m responsible to restore someone’s beloved memory. Reiner isn’t really helping with his broad and smug grin.

“Th-thanks. For lettin’ me do this,” I stutter back and rub the place on my shoulder where he hit me. At least my bolsters – thick leathers pads that protect my shoulders form burns – cushioned the impact.

The area between my thick leather gloved hands and shielded shoulders is naked, though, and that’s why my forearms look as if someone dunked them in acid. The skin is blistered and burnt. Some places are red and others have turned white and padded over time. I’m fucking proud of my scars.

“So, what do you say?”, Reiner asks and crosses his arms, not making any effort to assist me with the melted metal. He’s testing me, trusting me.

I take a deep breath and step closer, propping myself up next to the oven’s hole and taking a peek inside. The mould is smoldering from heat and I nudge it with my gloves to move the metal inside. The liquid stirs and moves up and down the edge.

“Give me a minute,” I say. Reiner just nods curtly.

 **Fuck**. A drop of sweat rolls down my cheek and sizzles into steam when it falls down into the ashes. “It’s good,” I say and swallow down the fat lump in my throat.

Oh God, I hope I did this right. It’s literally everything, I can’t fuck up. This job is my life and all I have. And this seemingly unimportant task can take me to the next level.

I catch Reiner’s glance and focus on his golden eyes, small and wrinkled around the edges. Years of work and dedication to a ruthless task of fire and metal. Reiner stares down at me. The waiting silence stretches over the spitting and crackling sound of fire and my heavy breath. I sway under his gaze like a candle’s flame in the wind. He says nothing.

I swallow again – my throat tightens and the lump swells. I fucked up, didn’t I?

“Damn well you’re right! C’mon, we’ll get that babe out and then you gotta watch over her!”

“Oh my fuckin’ God I _hate_ you!” I scream and punch his shoulder as hard as I can.

Reiner’s laughter blasts through the smithy and he catches my fist with ease, twists it around so I howl in frustration and have to follow the turn of my bones.

“You bastard, you knew all along it was perfect! You knew that I would fucking pass and just tested me!”

“Of course I knew. You gettin’ better each day, boy”, Reiner grins and lets me go.

I whirl around to shout again but his broad smile and a pat on my shoulder bring a beaming grin up my cheeks. I did well, I fucking owned that liquid steaming metal like a real blacksmith.

My stomach feels warm and all golden.

“Alright, let’s take her out then!” I’m catching myself talking just like Reiner, referring to the sword as a woman. Don’t care right now.

Together we slide two bars with flat metal tiles at the ends under the mould. We sweat together and huff air in and out as the stone lifts off its red-glowing holder and slides onto our bars. Reiner makes a move backwards and I follow. We move like one, I step a bit to the right and force the mould around the oven’s corner and over to the laydown area.

“Got it!”

“Well done,” Reiner says and we set our bars down simultaneously.

“That was an asshole move you pulled,” I pout and nudge my elbow into his ribs. “But now I’m good enough to forge my first sword, right? You serious about that?”

Reiner shrugs and snatches a cloth from one of the tables to dry off the sweat from his forehead.

“I guess so, yeah. I think y’are a capable guy.”

“That means I can – “

“But!” Doubt in his voice.

“Fuck Reiner, don’t ‘ _but_ ’ me! What’s the matter?”

I glare up at him angrily and stuff both hands into my pocket, my feet digging into the ground as I curl all ten toes in my shoes. He’ll say no.

Of course I can’t forge my own sword now. There’s always something my bosses have up their sleeve to keep me from finishing anything great in my life. The anticipation falls off my face like a mask and crumbles somewhere down on the floor.

Reiner sighs, deep and apologetic.

“Hey, ‘m sorry Jean. I’ve got a ton of other stuff to do.”

“Yeah, right. Forget it.”

“Jean.” His voice jerks me up. I have already turned away, done with the same words over and over again, the same “I’m sorry” echoing in my head. Once, twice, four and five times.

“It’s _fine_ , didn’t you hear? I said – “

Reiner blinks and then his face lightens up.

“You think I’m talkin’ shit, don’t ya? Hell Jean, I’m serious. You just gotta watch yer work alone.”

I don’t trust my ears. What did he just say?

“I’ve got a commission for the King’s guard again. Two swords for ceremonies, big deal.” Reiner sighs and his voice tremors at the last words, and he speaks to me as if I was a little child.

“I ain’t throwin’ you out or makin’ fun of ya. Just can’t watch you an’ help you. You make this one alone and show me when it’s done.”

Relief crashes down like a thunderstorm.

I _float_ , figuratively. He’s keeping me around. He isn’t firing me and I won’t have to look for a new work again. Reiner puts a hand on my shoulder and turns me around. He doesn’t even have to because I’m wax in his grip. My legs spin all by themselves and my body follows.

“I’m gettin’ to work right now!” I grin and bounce up and down on my toes.

I hear my own blood rushing, heart jumping and pounding with the speed of an arrow swishing from the bowstring.

Reiner knows and chuckles at my broad grin. His large thumb rubs a short soothing circle on my shoulder.

“Kid, you are a’ight. Won’t let you flee me smithy so easily.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m stuck here then.” I don’t even attempt to sound regretful.

Reiner nods, then his fist finds my scalp and squeezes down until I yelp in surprise.

“Now get ya lazy ass back to work! That sword ain’t gonna get forged on its own.”

“As you wish, Your Majesty,” I scoff back at him and just barely escape the hit my boss throws after me. “And don’t stress your old bones too much!” I add before Reiner groans and shakes his fist and I quickly scram into the far back of the smithy. I slump down on one of the chairs there and stare down onto the cooling mould where liquid metal softly sizzles and waits for me to force a new beauty out of old iron bones.

I smirk and resist the urge to bash my fist into the air. Of course Reiner won’t drop me. He doesn’t care about the whispering people do behind my back, thinking that turning away shuts my ears down from the sneaky words falling of their pretentious lips. Yeah, look at me, look at me long and in all the detail your greedy eyes desire.

I’m sinking into my task and begin to work.  
As soon as I have the mysteriously sizzling mould filled with cooling thick metal in front of me, everything else fades.

 

* * *

 

It’s hours later when Reiner’s voice wakes me. I jerk up from my trance and stare at his face. It hovers over me, staring down with furrowed brows.

“We have a problem.”

I scowl. If Reiner says that something’s wrong it has to be a catastrophe. Nothing in the world throws him off.

I set down the hammer and wipe the thin layer of sweat off my forehead. My shirt is soaked and dirty from tiny splinters of iron, chafed off from the work I did on my first sword. I’m nearly don. The blade shines bright and clean under the light of a torch that hangs over my workplace.

My back hurts from leaning down. I have swung the hammer more than a hundred times in the past hours, might as well be two hundred. My fingers are all blistered and raw and I bit my lip into blood.

I’m so damn proud. This is the first time I actually finished something real, something good and useful.

Reiner looms over me and his eyes are all worry and dark around the edges. No time to look at my work. I slide my fingers over the anvil and find a slender edge to wrap them around. The air begins to sizzle.

“What happened? You fucked up the workpieces?”

Reiner gives me a murderous glance, his mouth twitching. I raise both hands in defense.

“A’ight, sorry. Wasn’t serious you know. So honestly, what went wrong?”

Reiner slumps down on a chair next to my anvil. He doesn’t even take a look on my sword and that sinks my heart into the depths of my ribcage.

The tiny bell in the back of my mind begins to ring. I lick salty sweat off my lips. What… what’s wrong?

Something stirs inside me. It’s like the awakening of an old memory, a roaring beast claiming escape from my mind to ramp and rage through my consciousness all over again. This isn’t good.

The air is thick and warm and presses me down to the ground. It’s not the heat for once but by God, I wish it was. I sit next to Reiner on my own chair and worry my lip again until it tastes raw and slick from spit and more salt.

Reiner breathes out and wipes his hands on the legs of his pants. His eyes are squinted, almost shut when he looks up at me.

“We’re out of turf. I can’t finish the commission, you can’t polish your sword blank in the fire. It’ll go out in a few hours.”

My mind races, numbers and seconds pass in front of my inner eye. I can’t read a word or write a single letter, but I can count to a million, and that’s more than enough for the hilarious calculus my brain finally spits out.

“No.”

“Jean, I know I shouldn’t even think of asking this – “

“Then don’t.”

I’m shaking.

Don’t make me do this. You know I can’t say know when it’s about my job. It’s all I have, and with my own commission done I automatically become his apprentice.

But people are already talking. About Reiner, how he’s letting me work here and that he’s protecting me from their greedy glances and snide gestures. If he loses the order – my world spins. I grab my chest and dig nails into my skin as if it would help.

Reiner’s eyes wear sadness all over them.

The gold has gone dull and the flames lick over his cheekbones. He looks old and guilty and for a flying second I hate that he gave me work and hope and now all of the glorious shit will drown me once again.

“I need you to get a new cart of turf. I can’t leave here now, I got work.”

My fingers twitch as if they are trying to protect me, wanting to shield me from every new word rolling of Reiner’s lips. My mouth is full of salt and blood. A piece of wood cracks in the fire.

“You have to go. Please. The way is safe and illum’nated – “

I jump up and the sword clatters down on the floor, metal singing with a high soprano of heat and solid iron. Sparks fly.

My hands clench into fists. The last time was enough for a whole life and now Reiner asks me to return.

“I’ll give you the big oil lamp. And Bertl will meet ya halfway.”

That’s still another mile that I have to walk alone. The way to Berthold’s turbary is broad and full of light and I can’t, can’t, can’t. By god and everything sacred in this shitty bottomless pit of a world, don’t –

“Jean,” Reiner says, and now he’s up on his feet and holding my shoulders. “This depends on you. If we lose their order or ain’t be delivering on the spot tomorrow mornin’ – “

I have no choice.

“ _Please_. I’m so sorry.”

Reiner’s head slumps down between his shoulders and he looks as small and frightened as I feel. I stare into the oven’s fire and their flickering chases a hoard of shadows cackling over my face. Minutes pass by in a thick stream of charcoal gleaming in the flames, sparks flying up and vanishing into steam and warmth.

An eight-year old freezing cold returns and conquers my bones with a lightness that chokes all breath out of my lungs.

“Jean?”

I sink into the chair and try to vanish. Reiner huffs and pats my shoulder.

He knows my answer, and he’s sorry, and that gives me absolutely nothing the second my mind flies off and bursts through the smithy’s roof and hovers over town like a goddamn shadow. I twists and spasm inside and my knuckles whiten around the chair’s armrests.

“I’ll get the cart ready. You gonna do well, believe me. Gotta face your monsters to fight ‘em.”

“Okay.”

I don’t want to _fight_. I don’t want to be brave or a hero or a goddamn warrior with an emblem on his chest and jewels in his pockets.

Over the fire’s quiet crackling there is a howl from far in the distance. Without turning my ears I know where the noise comes from. It is a night bird, maybe an owl. Or something much bigger, stronger and more threatening than any scar on my quivering forearms I bury my face in.

The Forest calls.

 

* * *

 

Being the well known abomination of Shiganshina has its benefits.

A group of playing children stare at me while I make my path along the main street. A streak of daylight is left on the horizon where clouds tint red and violet. I could make it without meeting darkness. I could. In fucking theory.

If I didn’t have to pull a heavy-as-fuck carriage for the turf behind me, with wheels as loud as a fucking army.

That thing attracts more attention than a signal horn. Usually I can slip through the crowd unnoticed, but the cart lights me up for everyone to see. Also, I’ll have to drag it back when it’s fully loaded with a fuckton of turf. My arms won’t live through the night.

The atrocious brats yell after me, their voices croaking high-pitched and vibrating with excited fear.

“There’s the bastard!”, one says and then they begin to chant fervently “monster, monster, turn around”.

I’d love to rip their throats out and feed them to the pigs.

But I do what I learned and don’t reply, ignore them, bar the hostile glances out of my mind. Works sometimes, yet not today. A few pebbles come flying from behind and jump off from the cart’s wheels, dropping down uselessly.

For once those hussies missed my shins or head. They usually aim better, a row of bruises along my neck and legs proves it without doubt.

_“Freak!”_

I don’t do anything. It’s no use when the world is against you. You can’t fight a hurricane.

Most of the kids turn away after a few seconds, disappointed how normal I seem. They expect fire and flames spilling from my mouth. Big fucking lie, I’m not a demon. Nothing like the stories their parents tell.

I’m just – just Jean.

Jean Kirschstein, homeless, trying to live in peace with what’s left of my sane mind.

I cross the marketplace as fast as I can with that stupid heavy carriage behind me.

The cheerful bargaining stops abruptly.

It’s even worse here; the main street is at least full of exhausted hurry and oh-god-I-hope-I’m-not-late wavering in the air. Too busy to notice me.

But the market is pure fucking serenity. Time loops around the plaza, from the fruit farmers to the jewelers in the back. People step idly and halt to chat and laugh.

My outrageously noisy cart pulls invisible strings, and just like puppets in a children’s theatre their heads flick around and they stare.

Everything around me stills for the time of a few deep breaths. I focus on the grubby cobblestone pavement, count my steps in pairs of two, the cart rattling obnoxiously loud behind my back. I grit my teeth and avoid their glances, the disgust reflecting in those hollow caricatures of eyes.

_“The bastard.” – “Don’t look, you know what happened to the baker who was nice to him…!” – “Damn, I hope the plague gets him.”_

They haven’t killed me yet because they fear I might come back and take revenge.

The drawbar’s cushion crumbles apart under my fingers and after just fifteen minutes of pulling the damn thing I already have wooden splinters piercing my palms. I stop to shake out my hands and pick the pieces out of my skin. The merchants close to me jerk up from their stools behind the stands when I halt. Thinking I might steal something or set their junk on fire.

“Back off!” I duck from a stick thrown after me and quickly continue my rattling path.

A few years ago, I was just bad luck. Now I’m the embodiment of purgatory’s worst scum on earth. The crowd parts before me and they let me through without any complications. Most people don’t dare to attack – as I said, fear of revenge. But it’s a good day. Wanna know why? I call a day good when I don’t get beaten up. That says a whole fucking lot about me.

I wish I had never been born. The world is better off without me.

I rattle past the bakery and a few market stands apart from the main plaza. Here’s where the more exclusive items are sold, and I catch a short glimpse of precious panels spread out on the tables. Scratchy lamb’s wool dyed in purple and red, silk from foreign countries in a multitude of colours shining in the sun’s light that’s now descendent and dim. Golden bracelets, studded with diamonds and jewels.

I bite my lip and worry it until I taste blood again. Bad quirk. Repays with my mouth looking like a damn battlefield all the time. A small sacrifice a calm mind.

I take the next turn, and the darker alley I enter shields me from happy laughter and boastful merchants praising their goods to customers.

It’s not far anymore until I reach the town’s border.  
The main street shrinks into a slender path that meanders gracefully up a small hill and straight into the Forest of Trost.

It’s wide enough for a carriage to rattle over, up up up the knoll, disappearing into the densely huddling trees. The guards haven’t closed the gate yet and just wave me through – to my fucking fortune they don’t check my face thoroughly, and I make an effort to keep my gaze down to the ground. Blend in. Don’t shine out. They heard about me, about what I accidentally do, of course – but they don’t know my face.

I stroll past them and hurry to get up the hill. But instead of focusing on my job, I lose myself to the ocean of worries floating in my head.

A mile until Berthold and I meet. Torches along the way, Reiner said. The turbary is two miles into the Forest. I haven’t left the town in eight years. Ever since I came to Shiganshina I have stayed inside it.

“Fuckin’ shit.” I curse a lot when I’m scared. “Dumbass stupid turf.”

My lip tastes metallic and red. I kick a rock out of my way, listen to it tumbling off to the side and down the hill overgrown with grass and patches of dark green moss.

Reiner has indeed given me the biggest oil lamp he has, how fucking useful. Sarcasm strong today. I can light it up any time he said, when I’m scared, and I shook him off and silently chucked the fucking lamp into the cart. As if a beacon of light could protect me from anything behind those trees.

Reiner looked so overall guilty and sad when he watched me leave.

My fingers wrap around the drawbacks once again and I pull, nearly rip the cart forward. Get your shit together, Jean. I swallow down the thick lump in my throat, force it back into my stomach that twists and writhes with each step I take forward, verging on the Forest. It takes a sharp pain in my lip to hurry my feet up.

The Forest’s shore is a black gaping abyss. A howl rustles through the tree’s giant crowns, sending shivers down my spine. The wind picks up.

Puddles of mud whisper and burble under my steps, crumbs bounce off to the sides where the cart’s wheels dig a pathway into the dirt. I aim for the old wooded trail that slithers up the hill, a black cobra baring its fangs in a hiss.

Darkness comes.

I breathe, once, twice.

“Shit,” I say and it is to pump some courage back into my heart. Doesn’t work.

The townspeople’s voices echo in my head – _‘Monster’, ‘Freak’._ I’ll show them and become a blacksmith.

I dive into the opening between massive trunks of ancient trees and the town closes from behind me. I’m in. All I have to do is follow. Reiner didn’t explain the way, he just said “go with the path and Berthold will see you”.

The “path” is a dirty grey smear on the ground under the wobbling of my oil lamp’s light hanging on the side of my cart, easy to see. At least I won’t get lost. It makes everything quicker.

The minutes pass while I walk and breathing becomes harder.

My mind, fuck, everything just blurs and fades at the edges of my vision and just like thin threads of metal snatching under pressure I stamp with galvanic motions.

If you ever thought that a forest is silent by night you have obviously never been in one. The noises, sounds of animals howling – owls screeching, a wolf whimpering in the distance. I try to keep my eyes on the ground and the cart as close to my back as possible. Dawn is crawling up the horizon, a slumbering beast that lurks from the abyss and brings chill and the renowned shudder of night. Giant trees, grown dense and solid, suck in all the light.

I duck down from a few rustling leaves that caress my neck when the wind blows all of a sudden and whirls through the Forest.

A few drops of rain fall into my collar and run down my spine; I shiver. Goddammit, I almost screamed, the Forest is seriously fucking with me. It’s as if it lives, as if the howling wind is its lungs gasping for air, the ground all flesh and oh God, the trees. The damn trees will come down at me, the sky will fall and swallow me down and I’ll be digested by this fucking nightmare and spit out pleaseleavemealone.

I stop and stare into emptiness, trying to calm my thundering heart and the frightening tightness in my ribcage.

And then the lamp throws brightness against the trunk of a tree, just to my right. Wait, the path is broad as hell, there’s enough space for a horse carriage. There aren’t supposed to be any trees so close to me. I just followed the path, what the hell -

“You can’t be serious.”

Five minutes in and I managed to lose the way. I’m standing in front of a group of trees, trunks old and crumbling under decay, and with panic overthrowing my mind and conquering what’s left of my shivering courage, I didn’t notice the ground changing, from pebbly road to soft wilderness, and took a wrong turn. Wrong direction.

Suddenly, the world stills.

“Fuck. Berthold? Fuckin’ shit!”

I’m alone, not close enough for him to hear me.

I hang between my home and the horror and wait, I anticipate with sweating palms around the drawbars. My skin is just a cold layer of sweat against the miserable whimpers of the wind rushing over me. Run, run away and flee and hide, my mind screams. The sinister crowns of giants loom above, trees seem to lean down and theywillsuffocateme –

“Berthold! A-are you here, somewhere? Please! Berthold!”

 

My words dither and gurgle up my throat and spill down my lips, running over my chin like stinking bile. Oh God, please answer me, I can’t -

A warm beacon fires up in the periphery of my eyes.

The torches! The way. It’s to my left, maybe a dozen feet apart from my position.

My heart does a high jump and I grab the tree, somehow dig my fingers into the bark and suppress a miserable sob while I watch the torches burn and oh, I have never seen something as fucking beautiful. The flames dance nervously in the wind’s angry breeze and still they are my guidance, the bonfire that brings me closer to Berthold. And it’s only a damn mile.

“’s okay. You… you aren’t lost.”

I speak to myself because hey, for years that was the only other voice I would hear. It still is today, sometimes, when there have been too many… incidents with me. It works to calm my rioting blood that fulminates and hisses too fucking much.

“I’m fine.”

The cart creaks unwillingly when I turn it around. My mouth can’t stay still now and continues to mumble panicked fractions of syllables, to break the storm of fear in my mind down into something smaller, more bearable.

“Berthold will wait. G-gotta hurry.”

I go on, somehow, with wood splinters in my palms and darkness soaking my bones.

 

* * *

 

I haven’t got the slightest clue on how I made it to the meeting point.

But I remember that my feet stomped the grey path with a panicked determination and that cold sweat had long gone soaked my back with sticky saltiness. That I only followed the torches, dragged the rattling cart behind me and whimpered with every noise, with every rustling in the undergrowth surrounding my way. I didn’t dare to look right or left.

I remember whispering Berthold’s name like a mantra, a spell to keep evil away. Reiner thinks I can overcome my fears by going into the Forest once. He might be a genius with his hammer and anvil, but put him in front of remotely related to emotion and he transforms into an awkward mumbling mountain of “uhm well”.

I remember the whimpers falling off my mouth that’s covered in chunks of blood, the iron buzzing on my raw flesh.

It’s silent except for the night’s usual voices. Another bird’s chirping, a big animal rustling somewhere behind me in the bushes. Don’t listen, focus. Your mission. Soon it’s all over.

And so I just stop at the only torch that is surrounded by two others on the right side of the path and doesn’t stand alone. I set down the cart and grunt loudly. My back and arms hurt and I rub my biceps with shaky hands, fingers cold as ice and numb from gripping too tightly. Shouldn’t Berthold be here? Insecurity begins to gnaw at my guts and fucking cackles, echoes in my brain like waves on a ragged shore.

Alright, breathe. ‘s okay. I am – I have to be fine.

I take a curt look at the torches again by going down into squatting.

How much time has even passed? Did I get lost?

Red flames flicker over my hands and lick at the scars on my forearms when I touch the middle torch, looking for some kind of clue. The usual pattern of the signal fires is one at each side of the path. Here they are huddled in a group, and I find a blue stripe of colour painted under the holder of the middle one as I trace my finger along it. This place has to be where Reiner usually meets Berthold. I lift myself up again, shift from one foot to another.

“Shit. Come _on_.”

I bite my tongue on instinct, let it stick out between my clattering teeth. Nights are cold in town already. But here, in between looming darkness of the trees and the rioting wind catching between branchwood, I am shivering from head to toes. And the world is still in a blur. _Please. Get me out of here._

“Jean? What are you doing here?” says someone.

“ _Berthold_ ,” I croak out and whirl around to the voice.

He stumbles out from the bushes, a tall man with big gentle eyes and clumsy fingers fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. He’s the opposite of Reiner, lanky and shy in his movements and the wave of his hand when he greets me. Did he hide behind a tree? Why would he do that? I furrow my brows and look up and down on him, then shrug. Whatever. The relief washing over me rinses the thick lump out of my throat, and I can speak without feeling bile coating my tongue.

“Uh yeah, Reiner sent me. He can’t come tonight.” I clear my throat and make a useless nod, quickly pocket my hands that just swing around awkwardly otherwise. “He’s busy with an order for the King’s guard. Big thing.”

“Oh.” Berthold sounds so disappointed (almost devastated?) that I immediately feel guilty.

“Sorry. I know you two have this thing with meeting here, Reiner told me you’d be – “

“What?” Berthold jerks up from staring into the cart. He kicks a pebble around with the tip of his shoe, arms flapping by his sides like some newly born bird. Uncomfortable, that’s what they all are with me. But Berthold’s okay. He has a problem with people in general.

I open my mouth to repeat myself but Berthold interrupts with a hasty churning of his hands in front of his chest.

“O-oh no, it’s… it’s fine. I, uh.” I wait because he also has problems with speaking. Berthold seems to appreciate that, and his lips curl into the memory of a smile under the fire’s warm light.

“So you need t-turf, yes?” I nod, and he hums. “Let’s go then. Wait – weren’t you afraid of – “

“Don’t mention it. Just don’t.” I pick up the cart’s drawbars again. Berthold’s mouth falls shut with a soft sound and he just shrugs. “’kay. I got Reiner’s turf ready, e-enough for a week.”

Walking with Berthold is okay, even though it’s quiet as well.

We don’t talk much after he asks if I want to take the whole load of turf. Berthold looms by my side. He doesn’t have to lead the way with torches surrounding us and somehow that relaxes his hunched shoulders a bit. I don’t try to start a conversation because he already looks nervous and sweaty enough.

Five minutes later my arms are sore from pulling and I can’t stand the silence anymore. Berthold stubbornly stalks forward and I have problems to keep his pace. Fuck his ultra long legs. At least we get to the turbary faster. The torches appear in shorter gaps and their flames shiver and crackle cryptically whenever the wind howls through the Forest.

“Hey,” I say over the soft sound and crane my neck to look at Berthold. Damn, he’s tall.

“Shh.”

I blink and dig my heels into the earth to stop the cart when Berthold halts. What the – did he just shut me up? Seriously? Anger boils in my stomach and I slam the cart down by the drawbars, my palms screaming in protest.

“Berthold, what the fuck – “

“Jean, please be still. I think I heard something.”

Berthold’s changed within seconds. His hunched body straightens and he rises in a wave. His neck tenses, muscles spring up from under the skin. And now my danger sense tingles as I hear it, too. Fuck, oh _fuck_. He’s right.

There _is_ something.

“What…” Berthold chokes on his words and we stare at the black velvet sky, together, unbelieving. It can’t be, it’s impossible. Berthold coughs and clasps a hand over his mouth. I can’t speak at all, only hear the faint echo of his voice when everything starts to spin and my vision spirals into a gaping abyss. The same alarm that tingles before what people call monster about me bursts out – it screeches high-pitched and fucking savagely behind my eyes.

“What on earth,” Berthold whispers.

Not _earth_ , not on the ground. We don’t direct our eyes at the woods surrounding us. Berthold whimpers, a helpless small thing from his chest and I, I have no choice but to drill my teeth into the flesh of my mouth and taste the blood because that keeps me from falling unconscious in fear.

I have never heard _anything_ like it.

It’s a noise, a sound as wild as thunder, broad and buzzing and slowly swelling in the distance, and when I locate its source my heart lumps into stone.

Something is coming down from the sky.

And it’s _falling_.

It’s falling down on us and it’s fast – sound cracks and crescendos as it nears. And, just when a thin thread of silver snaps in my mind and the old-known feeling of catastrophe roars up in me, I see the glow in the night’s firmament.

Berthold screams in sheer panic as I turn and run for my life.

Adrenaline floods my veins and pumps with the frightened beating of my heart. I jump and stumble into the wild herd of trees, away from the path and this thing – _fuck_. The noise gets louder, I swear, it fucking **_grows_**. It gets bigger behind me and isn’t roaring anymore but there is a faint sound of a voice in it, it speaks and _whimpers_ -

A root hooks over my foot and the sharp jolt holds me back - “God – _no_!” I scream as well, don’t even feel my knees hit the ground and how my trousers rip and blood spurts from my shins.

Miserable and panicked, that’s how I sound when a low sob breaks from my lips and I rip my ankle brutally away from the root. Woods creaks and splinters but -

_“C-come on!”_

A wave of pain crashes over my foot, something twists inside and it hurts so fucking _much_ , but I have to run and the pain drives me forward, the glow brightening behind my back and that horrible noise stinging inside my flesh and bones. I can’t care about anything but the old fear from eight years ago and even though it’s a light that hunts me now, everything else is still the same.

Hunted. Chased. Into the Forest until the realm of darkness engulfs you.

I disappear between the bushes, branches slam into my face and scratch painfully over my cheeks and nose – a thorn rips my neck open. More blood, it splatters over my shirt and soaks my sweaty skin, iron and salt lingering in my mouth.

I run _run **run**_ , faster, I have to, _need_ to survive, don’t want to die. Just need to get away from the storm rioting above my head. I’m leaving Berthold, I am the worst trash, I want to live, abandon him. Everybody’s on his own now. I don’t want to die when a fucking – the thought is too scary and huge for my head but I think it anyways – when a fucking **_star_ ** is falling down from the sky and the world ends in the Forest of Trost.

I slither across a pile of leaves, and the wetness of yesterday’s rainy night catches under my soles. Fuckin’ shit! No. God, no, please. I stumble and fall, the slippery ground clings to my feet and pulls me down. My arms fly up – I try to regain my balance because that thing is still plummeting from the vast heavens and will crush me under fire and stardust if I don’t escape, and I will die in the ruins of the universe’s filth.

Then I am face down in the mud, all my desperate tries to stay on both feet gone to waste. And it’s dark, so dark I can’t see, squidgy moss under my struggling body and I just flip myself over and crawl backwards, and I search for the thing that will probably strike close to me. It was headed at the turbary, close to where Berthold and I stood, so I should be far away by now, enough to survive the impact if I cower myself down and be very small –

I see it again when a massive tree trunk collides with my back and cuts off any escape paths. I’m trapped, it’s too dark to see anything but the light and what it does lets me blink. My chest tightens, my breath catches.

This – this is _impossible_.

I sit, pressed into the tree that will be my graveyard, and the fucking glow is right above me.

And before I can think about anything – why the loud roaring noise is gone, why it is far smaller than I thought, just about my body’s size – a shivering cold grips my heart.

The fallen star followed me.

It is **_alive_**.

It isn’t a meteor or some comet crashing down from the universe, a lost piece of stardust pressed into a rock’s flesh. The rain-soaked leaves drench my clothes with dirty water. My face is covered in blood, it stings everywhere, I’m chafed from falling and fleeing and I can’t do anything but press into the tree and sob out a heavy panic attack clotting in my stomach.

It was going to end like this. They told me, whenever I got stones against my head and the treatment of the filthiest trash on earth.

_“You are cursed.” – “You bring sickness and let our children die.” – “You are an abomination.”_

So here we are. Death. Sitting between ancient trees, left and alone in the forest, killed by a something that has followed me all the way here. It’s impossible. It’s – it has to be magic. But there is no such thing in the world, no explanation for why the light quivers softly and shifts, and then it dims with a faint hum.

It has come for me. I clench my fists at my chest, everything is too narrow for me to breathe, I choke. The world, the night sky above me come to a halt and there’s only this vivid light right before me.

It sinks down, I see through the tears trailing down my face and the blood drying in my mouth, salt and iron hovering in the air me. What is this… thing? My hands fall limp, my strength fades and I give in to the fear.

_“Rrriiihh.”_

You’ll think I’m crazy. But the silhouette of light just **_tingled_**.

The Forest is in complete silence and I can’t do anything but watch with a mix of awe and seething panic when the glow whitens out. The contours blur at first, then its brightness vanishes more and more. That thing tingles again and I swear to fucking God, I have never heard anything like it. It’s so surreal, to die from a being that’s so lucid and blazing. Up close, and that’s a clear sign of pre-death insanity to me, I think it’s kind of beautiful –

**_“Stjarnamir…”_ **

It speaks, and I am definitely going insane. The globe of light isn’t round anymore, it has morphed almost languorously and now hovers as a myriad of tiny sparkling stars right before my eyes. The word it says tinkles and echoes in the silence, and it almost sounds as if the light was singing to me.

_“Hilfsra!”_

“What?,” I instinctively ask back and I wish I didn’t. That third – noise, whatever this is – is different. It’s a lower tone and if I didn’t know better then it almost sounded like utter desperation, as if the glow was in _pain_. And then something odd happens, as if the night isn’t crazy enough and my mind isn’t fucked up for years, dying at any second now.

The gleaming sparks aren’t a silhouette and they aren’t shapeless. I stare and can’t keep a surprised scream from fleeing my lips when I see vaguely how it moves closer, hear the sound of skin and a frightening sound of – no, that can’t be. The sound of a bird wanting to _fly_ –

The star opens his eyes.

And now I see the contours of his arms in the air, legs hanging down from where he soars above me and the spots scattering him like the galaxies and planets up in the night sky. He’s – alive. Breathing, raggedly even. I can’t do anything but stare dumbfounded. Impossible. He looks so _human_.

A thick drop of liquid falls onto my cheek. I smell blood.

**_“Stjarnamir.”_ **

And his eyes hold me right where I am, the galaxy of an arm wrapping around my shoulder as the star comes down to me and we see each other. I only see his eyes. They don’t have pupils. Just a warm radiance of silver and gold flickering and fucking sparking where his iris should be and I think I forget how to breathe.

With a violent jolt, the world starts its eternal spinning again.

Another warm bloody droplet grazes my cheek and it feels like the creature follows it. An exhausted sigh rings through the air, and the shimmer of two eyes goes out in an instant. It all darkens, the sparks on the weird star’s body dimming and the sound of _wings_ vanishes.

I have no time to think. A large body crashes and crumbles down on me, sucks all air from my ragged lungs. The creature coils into my lap, wetness presses into my shoulder, it stinks from iron and salt and blood soaks my shirt.

A last soft tingling, a weary something grabbing my collar and holding onto it, and then I am left with a pounding heart full of fright and a fallen _star_ in my arms.

 _I am not dead yet,_ I think before everything blacks out.


	2. Starchild

**“It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness. Nothing more.”**  
  


\- _J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_

* * *

 

I wonder if death and dreams taste the same.

Should I feel blood trickling down my chin, or taste the flavor of old rusted iron glomming on my tongue if I was dead?

My father always said that dying was cold and sharp, that it stung and thrilled in your heart and flesh when life drained off you. He’s right. Warm blood is far too real for an elusive and dreamlike thing like death. Why do I remember my father now, in a dream? It’s been eight years. The forest has collected me again. I try to forget, but the memories come swirling with a familiar cold shuddering down my spine.

The first bite of death and dream tasted silvery from the screams cutting the air and my own voice, a boy’s thin sobbing catching on the looming shadows of the forest as he runs, stumbles.

He’s on the run; it’s a flight before a horror he’ll never forget.

He falls to his knees and watches, sees everything. I remember, I see my younger self from above, hover over my own mind that plays the scene on repeat.

Again.

Again.

Again. The same old thick darkness that’s now pulling me down was there, eight years ago.

The whispers in my head that come when I’m asleep.

Now, it’s not flight and neither is death trying to take me. It’s only a dream.

I just have to wake up. But something pulls on me, drags me back down into black unconsciousness. The reason that I’m as feared as pestilence in town is what’s _inside my head_. What controls and rises whenever it fucking wants to. They think it’s me, but I’d never let animals die from blood spilling out of their eyes. It’s – it’s – claiming my body, ruling with an iron fist. It’s –

I’m fucking _drowning_. It kills me. Humans are the weakest when asleep. I have to get out of this stupid dream!

It’s quiet.

The darkness deafens my senses from anything but the blood, velvet night glued to my skin and immobilizing me. I can’t feel my legs or my arms; the world has gone and left me hovering in a deep abyss. Breathe, I need – _I need air._ My jaw clenches, a groan falling from my lips and echoing into the silence. No, this isn’t the end yet _._

 _I can’t die._ Not like this, when – oh.

A noise.

_“Stjarnamir.”_

I hear a tiny sound. Something whispers, a voice sings quietly deep inside my mind. It’s a crystal tune that cuts into the apathy of my dream.

I try to listen, try to find a way through my own confused head that’s clouded with dizzy fog, with a delicious unconsciousness that calls _‘come back to me’_. It’s a word I’ve heard before. Isn’t that – _Stjarnamir_. That’s what the fallen star said!

The star, that eerie light that fell before me, that followed me across the forest and crashed into my arms with a meteor’s power.

Maybe all of this is just a weird dream, an illusion that my stressed mindbuilt after fleeing from something that was probably just a fucking _normal_ shooting star, a harmless late summer phenomenon that happens all the fucking time. The fear of being confronted with my oldest nightmare of the forest, and the chance Reiner might throw me out – that’s what caused my mind to flip.

 _“Plís…”_ the voice begs louder, a gentle urgency pushing on the syllable _._

 _“Ski, Í behov skan hilfsra!_ ”I want to follow it, let it guide me out of this fucking nightmare – it’s warm, maybe it’s my mind finally coming back, and I can be in control again –

 _\- N O -_

_Something else_ screams.

I cut the surface of my dream, a breathless gasp sputtering from my mouth and my whole body shudders. It’s _here_. It’s _awake_.

I fight my way up, battling the force holding me down- pulled down again - I’ll lose against my dream – but then, oh _God_ , a strong claw pulls me out of my own head and spits me back into reality with a violent roar.

My consciousness is _back_ , fucking goodness, it’s back, oh thank God. I start to fight back, mouth ripping open in a loud grunt. I _won’t_ die –

But now there’s disgusting acid clogging my throat, fuck, I can’t – _breathe_ – bile rises up, and I whimper.

I realize, I realize, understand far too late _who_ just roared _‘no’_ in my head, _who_ answered the soft gentleness trying to wake me up, _who_ wanted me to stay lost and alone inside my head.

That wasn’t my own voice – I didn’t, no, didn’t say anything! – , and neither was it the shy star’s whisper or the fucking illusion speaking to me. I stare into darkness, wide-eyed and shocked, because _that_ , that wasn’t a _person_ breathing whispers in my head.

No. _God, help me._

It’s the _thing_. The thing that’s living within me.

History flashes before my eyes. I slip back, fall into my head again. I hear people shout and break me with sticks and stones. Bones crack. Colours swirl past me, another memory. It’s older and more blurred but I see it, I see every detail right before me.

_The first job I took when I was twelve, helping out in a bakery. It happened when I swept the area before the ovens. A faint roar at first, a dark muttering in my mind. I ignored it. It happened again, seconds later, louder._

_Wilder._

_I bit my lip and swept harder, broke the broom’s thin bristles. The noises stopped, silence spread and I breathed through, thought it was over._

_The oven went up in bright red flames seconds afterwards._

_I was thrown out, beaten up by the baker until my nose cracked and my eyes were swollen from blood and tears. Whatever it was that burned half the bakery, it_ stayed _._

_I had angered it, and a constant battle began._

_I wage war against myself._

The whispers got louder over the years, increasing in volume and strength. I tried everything to forget them. Yet, in all those years, something like this has never happened before.

 _It_ has never spoken to me.

“ _Hereillät!_ ”

The voice again, high and tingling, it suppresses the _thing,_ fights it. It begs, pleads for me to come back to my senses. I don’t know how – but it calls me. And this time, I finally do. I come back.

I return. I’m too fucking terrified to stay in this nightmare, I’m not the monster that’s roaring madness in me! I _own_ myself – and that’s my strength.

“Leave me _alone_!”

I scream and throw my head back; my desperation wins against the darkness inside me. Something, _anything_ to help – fuck! I hit a hard surface - my head thunders against the tree I’m resting against at full tilt. All breath jerks from my lungs. Pain jerks down to my neck, to my forehead. Fuck, that _hurt_.

 _It_ falls silent.

My head is _mine_ again; nothing disturbs the flow of my thoughts. I listen, wait for it to make a move once more. Nothing.

Time ticks by. The forest rustles somewhere far away.

My head is empty. I’m the only one in here. Alone. It’s like the whispers pleading for my help were a magic wake-up call to rise me, to get me out of the chaos swirling in my dream. I try to move, stretch my legs that sting from pins and needles – fuck, I’m dizzy.

“ _Hereillä es tas?_ ” someone asks, a high tingling on the last syllable. Are those words, or am I still so scared that my head’s buzzing from imaginary voices that blabber nonsense? Clearly, I am.

“Ugh… fuck,” I groan, my head aching. Fuck, not again. The stupid dream’s left me devastated.

I reach back to rub my head and notice that I’m still pressed against the same tree where I blacked out like a stupid frightened child. The bark in my back’s like a gnarled pillar, the only thing keeping me upright, and for once I’m thankful for all those damn trees in this fucking forest. One of those saved my head from going berserk.

Pain sometimes helps, if I’m lucky.

“ _Skit mâslu sinnens erövskyld_. _Plís_!”

Again, those soft-spoken words jerk me up, my attention snapping to reality in an instant. Who’s even talking to me? Berthold? Who else, he probably came after me. There’s no one else around here but – no. Can’t possibly be the star. Just my imagination.

The whispers from my dream were just an illusion, my own _‘good’_ consciousness trying to get through to me. To wake me up. I tell myself that over and over again while I try to move my feet, regain control of my limbs. Nothing chased me through the forest until I stumbled. There isn’t a star, waiting for me to open my eyes and blink into a thousand spots of light.

 _None of that happened_ , I repeat soundlessly, propping myself up on both arms.

“Shit, my head…”

Everything will be fine.

I rub across my eyes and blink into darkness. I’m ready to face a wild animal attacking me, because I’m far too deep in the woods and I’ll be eaten alive. I’m ready to feel the same old fear welling up, to devour me whole the same moment that I’m completely alone and lost in the forest’s growling intestines.

Right now, I’d even fight a grown fucking wolf to get out of here – to get rid of the voice in my head, to never again hear it whisper to me.

And I’d do anything to wake up alone, resting against a tree, with the fucking meteor gone or smoldering in the earth hundreds of meters away.

I blink, once, twice. I’m not alone. My throat goes dry, and the fear howls.

“What the – oh God. Fuck, oh my God.”

I spit the horror out, choke on my words – and _stare_.

Impossible.

My throat is clogged, I’m drowning deep under an ocean of trees, their voices whispering and crackling above me. I face a creature, a _thing_ that’s unlike any human, any animal or fucking _everything_ I’ve ever seen.

Then it moves - twitches its arms a bit. I flinch, can’t hide anywhere, just stare and fucking piss myself with fear.

Its body is – my mouth falls open in a wordless scream. _What in the world is that?_

“How… what – oh m-my God.” Cold creeps up my spine and coils around my throat. I can’t breathe, just watch the silhouette before me move closer. It’s –

A pair of glowing white eyes.

That _thing_ has no pupils or irises, its face is hidden in shade except for the dazzling brilliant light coming from its eyeballs. It blinks, slowly, silver sparks blinking and swirling in its glance when it cocks its head. It’s gazing right at me, and then its body shifts slightly and a fucking _purgatory_ of stars lights up.

The monster is a piece of the night’s firmament. I don’t, can’t believe what I see, my feet are frozen and all I can do is sit there and stare.

A dead black shadow in human shape with thousands of glistening lights littered across its body.

It hides under a tree’s shade, simply standing there. It stares right at me with its head tilted to one side, lurking – waiting. It’s just a few feet away, and between us there’s nothing but the small space where that thing hit the ground. The grass is still flat, and I remember how it dropped down on me from like a goddamn meteor.

I’m its prey. It’s fucking hunted me down.

That _thing_ is a living, breathing star, and it fell from the night sky to devour me.

This isn’t possible, it can’t be. My heart beats erratic.

 _No_. There’s no such thing as demons and monsters or star-covered shadows.

It’s a mere illusion. A sick echo of my dream.

My legs are frozen to the ground, I can’t – can’t _move_ – and then the thing steps closer, silver light pouring over its body. What – oh.

The full moon’s just now peeking out from behind the trees’ wide crowns and reflects on the thing’s skin, its rays brightening the empty space where it cornered me. Everything floods with wan light, and a shiver runs down my spine, coiling cold as ice in my neck.

I see every little detail of the monster when the light embraces it. It’s fucking terrifying and stupidly beautiful all at once.

Myriads of stars melt into galaxies on its body. The thing really _is_ shaped like a human being, with arms and legs that are covered in dead-black skin and thousands of stars everywhere. It’s darker than the forest around it, and oh fuck, its skin fucking absorbs all brightness, the moon’s cold light vanishing between its limbs. The thing’s tall as a human and has dark hair on its head that’s full of twinkling lights, too.

And fuck, _fuck_ – the patterns on its body, they catch my eyes and hypnotize, tempt me to touch them, is that some sick kind of magic?

I still can’t move when the thing makes a dark purring noise and approaches me, revealing itself to the light.

A body made from stardust and wavering with whole solar systems of stars painted on it. In warm pulsing gold and silver, sparkling with every movement, they twine along its left leg and vanish behind its back, the opposite shoulder covered in a wispy net of glittering gold.

“ _Oh Himmel, skìt es hereillä_ ,” the monster sighs, and I think I’m gonna die.

“Fuck, go away, leave me a-alone!” I choke, whimper.

This is _far fucking less_ possible. Did this – did this _thing_ just talk? No, definitely an illusion. Fear’s clouding my vision and mind, I can’t listen, clasp both hands over my ears and whimper. What the fuck _is_ that?

My heart thunders in the narrowness of my ribcage when the thing moves slightly. _It will kill me._ A wild shudder captures my muscles, drives pure fire through my veins. I have to move, get the fuck out of here – and finally, my mind snaps back and strength returns to my limbs.

I jump up on my feet and throw my head around, search for some path I can run to. But that fucking monster is prepared.

“ _Hilfsra, plís!_ ” A voice, soft and almost desperate, begging in a language I don’t understand – no, not a fucking _language_ , it’s not human! It’s a beast and that’s probably an animal’s roar before it attacks. I’m so dead, so dead.

The _star_ steps closer, nears me again.

I shake my head, frozen, whisper stupid words – “No, leave me alone, just – just go away.” And by God, it stops.

Did it understand? Maybe, maybe it really spoke. Sweat trickles down my neck. My lips taste bloody, metallic, when I dart my tongue over them. It’s silent for a few moments. The moonlight paints silver streaks on the human face, the strange dark expression shifting. Is it – sad? Angry? God, relieve me, let me go.

Then the monster sighs deeply, a low rumbling voice comes from its mouth followed by a jerk through its body. I wait anxiously, wait for it to turn around and lose interest. Maybe I’ll survive this after all –

“ _Í nai skìnt vulnast_.”

Soft purring, almost gently – and then that beast attacks. Giant black wings unfold behind its back, reaching around me in one fluid motion. Within seconds I’ll be trapped between those fucking things, all escape cut off. I’m a mouse, facing the smirking fangs of a hungry cat.

“No, no! Let me go, oh God-” Fear blocks all my instincts and I can’t fucking move. I have to stand and watch as the monster embraces me with darkness full of silver stars.

That _thing_ will kill me.

It chased me here for a reason, to _feed_ on me or something else insane.

Of course it didn’t speak a real _language_ , just incoherent noises that sounded like words. Monsters aren’t fucking intelligent. This is how I’ll die.

While my head’s busy with processing, my fingers clench around the tree’s trunk. My knees go weak, I’m fucking terrified, fucking damn afraid **.** And then the _thing_ moves, its black arms are extending into my direction, pressing next to me into the tree. I’m completely cornered between wings and arms, warm breath brushing my face. Oh my _God_.

My stomach twists, sick and dark.

I need to get out of here or I’m dead.

But – oh _fuck_. A panicked noise breaches my lips.

The star leans in, its wings spanning around me. A gentle rustling where both of them touch my arms, brush along my cheeks.

I was too slow, didn’t flee in time, paralysed, just couldn’t _move_ – and now it’s over. I press into the tree, look around to find a last way out. Deeper into the forest, doesn’t matter. Anything, by God, _please_. I want to live. I don’t want to fucking find out how _exactly_ this beast kills or eats, _what_ it does to its prey.

“Oh _God_.” A feather brushes my lips, strangely warm and alive, but they’re not solid – smoke? Feathers made from bones and fucking _smoke_? I don’t fucking care right now, can’t care. All my escapes are cut off, and the beast stares into my eyes, glowing orbs blinking with sparks.

I’m _trapped_.

Those white eyes examine me, shimmering in darkness. The monster makes another eerie noise, and I press harder into the tree.

“G-go away, go the fuck away!”

The star blinks a few times, maybe it considers if it should kill me quickly or agonizingly slow. Its star-littered body gleams, gold and silver swirling in its eyes, white solar systems of stars melting into galaxies on its shoulders and cheeks.

It’s a human-shaped monster. Instead of fighting it, I notice the weirdest things while my heart thunders and my knees shake.

The thing has a weird, tiny nose that scrunches up. A bright star on its tip follows the movement; the monster’s jaw clenches. Its face is just a foot away from me, hovering like a lantern in darkness. I can see every detail of it, oh my fucking God. I see the light flaring in its white eyes, the way it tilts his head to look at me closely. The thousand rows of stars on its jaw move as it opens its mouth, gapes it into a hole to kill me.

I can just stare wide-eyed, fascinated and afraid. I wait for it to devour me with sharp teeth and glowing tongue. Because that’s it, it’s _over_ , once and for all.

The end. What a way to die.

And if I wasn’t going to be torn to _fucking pieces_ right now, while a sob rips from my throat, the monster wouldn’t be just scary. In a way, it’s fucking _beautiful._

“Please don’t be afraid of me.”

I think I’m going to faint again.

That thing _talks_.

To me. In _my own_ fucking language. With words that I know, it asks me to not be afraid. A wisp of wind tickles my neck, whirls through the trees, rustling and howling. I’m trapped between the wings of a starry beast.

“Can you understand me? Are you okay?” the thing says, head tilting more. What the hell? I don’t notice how my lip biting starts again, how I draw blood from my own flesh. I just stare in complete shock.

The being has a weird accent, as if it’s never used the words before but hell, I can fucking _understand it._ That means, oh God, my knees are shaking.

It’s _intelligent_.

The living star shies away the tiniest bit when I don’t react; its wings fluttering over my cheeks. I have to look pretty damn stupid right now. My mouth’s still gaping open, tears spilling over my cheeks. Those glowing eyes blink, and the thing speaks quieter.

“I am so sorry if I – uh - scared you.”

The stars on that thing’s shoulders sparkle, gold and silver almost blinding me. With nothing but darkness around us, it’s overwhelming, dazzling. I squint at it, my body frozen to the tree, motionless.

“Wha- y-you… oh G-god.”

There’s no way that was my own voice coming out of my mouth. Not with how it croaks and cracks apart when I press out a tiny “God help, help me”- I’m not religious. I’m absolutely fucking terrified, and that spurs prayers to any possible deity to my lips.

“You, you don’t have to reply. Just, please listen to me,” the thing begs, its arms quivering besides my head. The white that radiates from its eyes is warm, welcoming.

What fucking choice do I have but to listen? That star has me cornered with its ridiculously large wings. I’m trapped by a fucking _meteor_.

“Please. I won’t hurt you, I swear! I swear it by all stars in the sky.”

Warm breath grazes my face as the thing leans forward and a mouth of white teeth opens to smile at me. I can’t decide if I should scream or press harder into the tree until my head bursts. In the end, when the beast leans away, I do both. The star breathes again. We’re just a handbreadth apart, face to face with a beast. But wait, its teeth are – they are just like mine. No fangs here, and no sharp claws either when I take a quick glance at the hands cornering me.

“I’m so sorry.” _Yeah, you already told me that_ , I think and lick a drop of blood from my lips. Sweat falls in idle drops down my face, burnt in the cracked rifts of my lips. It fucking burns, but I suppress any noise – and the thing just goes on talking, shyness lingering in its gentle voice.

“I need your help, I beg you. You – know the way back into town, right? Do you live there? Please say yes.”

I dare to nod. The star huffs out a deep breath that brushes my cheek.

“Thank Heaven. Can you – can you take me to Shiganshina? I won’t harm you. I need your help.”

Finally, the star steps away, wings falling down and back to its sides to hang down like sad branches of a dead tree. It looks confused, almost helpless with its eyes darting over me. None of us moves for a good minute. Time streams by, thick and slow. I take a breath..

It’s fucking _heaven_ when I suck in air, my lungs expand and relief floods my veins. Cold shivers down my throat have never tasted so good, night stings in my blood. The star waits. Its eyes beam with bright whiteness.

I need about a minute to collect the scattered pieces of myself. And then, nothing holds me back anymore, fear breaking out like a wild wolf coming for its victim.

“Are you insane? You could have fuckin’ killed me!”

The star blinks, and its hands rise up in defense. Black fingers spread - the backs of its hands are littered with smaller silver galaxies.

“I’m sorry, I’m so awfully sorry! I couldn’t control my flight anymore–”

“And what the fucking hell are you even? Some – some kind of freakin’ magic _shadow_?”

My fingers curl and grip the tree’s bark. It’s enough. I won’t fucking die here, even if that thing suddenly seems less dangerous. _No_! I push myself off the tree and lunge at the thing, leap forward with all the power left in my body. _Attack_ , just attack it and run away, there’s at least a tiny chance to survive this. Just run _runRUN_ –

But the star doesn’t fight back. In fact, it just dodges.

The star moves fluidly, avoiding my extending fingers in one motion. I jump into emptiness and stumble forward. A yelp bursts from my mouth What the fuck –

“Watch out,” the star says, tone light as it comes back to me. Its feet shuffle over the ground and it rises up a bit, towers above me and –

It fucking _flies_! Fucking shit!

“Get away from me!”

I yell in surprise and jump back, press into the tree again. My chest heaves, my breath stutters. Back in my old cornered position, fuck, oh fuck. Did I make it mad? No. That thing’s wings flutter a bit, black and silver swirling together before it sets down again. No attack, just more gentle words. The star’s eyes dim even more.

“You’re the only one attacking here,” it whispers. And now I hear that oh – oh. There’s fear and a stifled cry in its voice, too. Just like me, it’s – I run both hands down my face, contemplate. It’s afraid of me. We’re both fucking frightened of each other.

I stand there, cornered, and the star is still here even though I attacked it. Maybe I should just listen.

“Fine, f-fine. What do you want? You-” I pull myself together and dare to eye the star from head to its galaxy-covered toes. “You’re lookin’ for Shiganshina?”

The star sighs and keeps its distance, dark body motionless. Its hands rise besides its head, surrendering. And if I’m not completely insane yet, it fucking smiles at me with sadness in its glowing eyes.

“Yes, I’m in search for that town. And again, I’m sorry that I scared you… I should have known how you’d react. Humans aren’t used to us anymore.”

Anymore? What the hell is that supposed to mean? I don’t ask, can’t care about fucking enigmatic hints right now. The star seems to feel the same as me and lowers its arms to clench them into loose fists. The way it stands there, head raised and shoulders back, stars gleaming in an endless firmament, it’s – it’s not scary at all.

“I’m a starchild,” the strange creature says, “and I won’t ever harm you.”

Starchild.

So that’s its name, its… race? The thing’s right, I’ve never heard that word before. Maybe because all I know about stars is either science I don’t understand or a fucking fairy tale that’s supposed to be pure fantasy. Imagination. Magic isn’t real.

And now I’m talking to a silver-sprinkled shadow that’s nearly _slain_ me while flying down from the sky.

I don’t even attempt to understand what’s going on.

My brain’s dead and I’m busy enough with keeping myself upright while I’m dizzy as fuck. No coherent thinking here. So I just lean back, slowly slide down the tree and slump on my ass. I find a thick branch lying around from the corner of my eyes and pick it up.

I sure as hell won’t sit around without a weapon, even if that thing seems harmless right now.

The star snorts and squints. I don’t know if it smiles because its mouth stays closed, but it puffs out air with a soft laugh.

“What’s so fucking funny?”

“It’s just – haha, sorry. You’re defending yourself against the most harmless creature ever.”

I don’t know why the star’s eyes lose brightness, why the shiny white goes dim again and its shoulders slump forward. Its laugh fades. It feels as if I’ve said something wrong, something hurtful. Fuck, I’ve never been good with other people, and that – that _thing_ is fucking speaking my language, so my words could hurt it somehow. It’s intelligent. It’s not trying to kill me, at least not right now. I know nothing about that thing.

But it’s the middle of the night, I’m stuck in a nightmare – the Forest of Trost – and starchild here is the only other… person around. So I better not mess this up and anger it.

“Fuck, okay,” I say and run both hands down my face, the branch grazing my cheek. Some of the blood, that thing’s and my own, smears over the wood.

It smells like rusted iron.

“So, you tell me you just come crashing down on me, fucking _chase_ me through the forest,” I raise the bough and point it at the star which immediately flinches and jumps back (for fuck’s sake, now _I_ feel like an asshole!). But I continue talking anyways and glare up at the now trembling shadow. “You chase me and then ask that I fucking take you into town? Are you mad? Is this some fuckin’ sick joke?”

I take a deep breath and find some strength in the deepest folds of my heart. I stand up and face the thing, head held high and branch pressed to my beating chest.

“You were going to kill me.”

My words fall heavy as stones and fucking do something strange to the thing – because now it whispers “No, no I wasn’t. I need your help, I need _you-_ ”

And the star creature makes a low noise, its arms fly around to hug its body. It sinks down further, falls, shrinks into a thinner silhouette while its shoulders slum down.

“Please.” A tiny whimper, and then the creature falls to the ground, its knees chafe across the earth. I’ve got no time to step back before black wings unfold and weakly roll down to both sides of the starchild’s body.

“I didn’t – I’ve never hurt _anyone_. I’m so, so sorry, please – you _have_ to believe me.”

And now a loud sob rips from the creature’s throat, so howling and fucking desperate that I flinch and jump a few steps back. Is it attacking again?

No, it’s not. My thundering heart skips one beat, and another when the thing curls in on itself. Its wings rustle, one grazes my legs when it wraps tight around the dark silhouette.

It’s crying.

I’m fucking speechless. What the fuck do you tell a crying mythological creature lying at your feet? What am I supposed to do? The starchild isn’t an intimidating, looming shadow anymore. It folded away its threat to me when it crumpled to all fours. I bite my lips again, bloody. I reach up to wipe it off – wait.

“You’re – you’re bleeding, right? Your blood, it’s – you bled on my face when you crashed down.”

I’m such an idiot. Whatever this is, it has no intention to hurt me. My brain whirrs.

“There… was an attack. I got h-hurt. B-but… I got away. Please, I beg you-”

Another whimper. The sentence ends when a violent shiver runs through the creature’s body. The starchild cries out and looks up at me, tears spill from its white eyes, where silver and golden hazes swirl around. Oh fuck.

“You weren’t chasing me… were you? Not on purpose? You were fleeing?” Sickness clogs and twists in my stomach.I choke and swallow the thick lump in my throat. My fingers clench around the wooden branch, a weapon that I won’t need. It – he or she, whatever – isn’t going to hurt me.

The starchild laughs, bitter. It doesn’t move anymore, speaks so quietly that I have to kneel down to listen, legs shaking. I’m still scared – of my fucking dream earlier, the roaring beast inside my head, of a strange creature plummeting down from the sky and nearly slaying me. But something about the starchild draws me closer, a charm I cannot escape.

Somehow, I don’t mind.

“Yes, I ran – flew away. My wing’s hurt.” It swallowed on its feeble voice. “I didn’t _chase_ you, I just needed to land and – I thought… thought you’d help me. I thought that humans, some of them at least… that they’d s-still know about us.”The star whimpers, its wings flutter up in a weak attempt to lift it up.

“Stop. You’ll only hurt yourself more.” I don’t dare to touch it, but my arm extends anyway to make a stupid soothing gesture.

To my surprise, it works.

For a few seconds, the starchild just stares, startled and bewildered by my strange behavior. Fuck, I get it, I don’t even understand myself right now. But then the creature nods and its head rolls back on its arms. The dark body curls tighter in on itself, and again I notice the galaxies’ glow weakening. Those scary glowing eyes I was frightened of… they dim.

“My wing’s bleeding. They shot me. I can’t – can’t fly.”

And now the starchild closes its eyes, hair brushes my knees as it shuffles into my direction. I swallow another thick lump in my throat. Fuck. What the hell.

Large, warm eyes glance up at me.

“Can you… will you help me? It’s – if I don’t find someone… I need to talk to a particular person, they know how to help me. Otherwise…”

It’s the finality of those words and a spur of blood glistening under bright moonlight that forces an answer from my lips. Oh _God_.

There’s a motherfucking _arrow_ stuck in the root of its right wing. The feathered end is peeking out, but the arrowhead is buried in the starchild’s flesh and bones. Someone really has shot this thing, and it still managed to fly away, probably far enough to not be chased anymore. I can’t help it, but damn, do I admire that starchild for a second.

It’s braver than I have ever been – and, oh fuck. I’m alone in the forest, in the middle of the fucking night, and my lantern is sitting back in my cart where I left it. On the main road, close to the turbary. Where I ran away from Berthold when the thing chased me. At least a ten minutes’ slow walk from here. A walk that’s long enough to transform me from an already shaking adult to a wailing and whimpering child. And the only light to guide me is injured by a motherfucking _battle wound._ Which means that it’s probably slow and in pain, and even if it attacks me… There’s no way I’m getting out of here tonight without a light by my side.

At least, it was the torches that made me enter the main path at all. The warmly lit up path, every few steps a new precious source of fickle light –

It’s unnecessary to ponder on my options. Staying in the Forest of Trost when it’s the darkest of all nights is as good as death by cutting my own heart out. Yeah, twist the knife in me blade-deep, twirl ‘til blood pours out. I can’t stay here, no way in fucking hell.

The beast in my head and the goddamn fear, the deadly terror of darkness will _eat me up._

I have to depend on a mythological creature to get out of this goddamn forest. I inhale and count to three, exhale with a sigh. I don’t have much of a choice, but that thing won’t fucking know that it’s my only hope, with its stupid bright eyes and shimmering body.

“O-okay. I’ll help you. Just don’t hurt me or I’ll thwack you with that branch. I’m fucking serious.” I point next to me at the stick, useless on the ground. But the starchild still nods and bobs up. I’m on my feet a moment quicker, fingers clenched in my pants, lips a thin line. The thing is still so – so unusual that I’m too confused to help it up.

But I know that I won’t need that branch anymore. Not when the starchild is practically beaming at me with gratefulness while the wings on its back convulse.

“Thank you, oh thank you so so much.”

It – it smiles at me. It has lifted itself off the ground and stands slumped forward, shoulders hanging low from the weight of its wings. It has them folded on its back, the tips brushing its knee caps. The air stinks metallic from blood and sweat.

I swallow hard. Alright, time to set conditions. As long as I’m close to the starchild, my fear’s in control. Really, it seems to work as a light. Not that I’m fine – I’m never fucking fine, and right now the forest looms and whispers around me.

But in a weird, fucking twisted way, starchild-creature here makes it bearable. I can endure the torture of black air choking my throat, for now. I hem, and the thing’s eyes flicker at me.

“So, uh.” I bring a hand to my neck, rub the sweaty skin that’s started to itch. “You’re gonna do what I tell you. And, uh, I think I have a way to get you inside. I guess you don’t wanna be seen?”

“Oh! Yes, yes of course. People would probably react like you do and, uh. Kill me.”

That stupid smile brightens up and another silver spark flits through bright eyes.

“I can’t even tell you how much you save my life. Probably… literally.”

The star bites back a whining howl when one wing falls makes a weird twist. The creature reaches back and grabs the tip. It holds the feathers tightly to its leg, probably to take load off the strained wing.

“’Kay. You gotta stay close to me. I know the forest and you don’t. Also – who are you even looking for? I mean, I don’t know anyone who believes in things like you.”

The starchild quirks a brow and comes to my side, as close as possible, until our shoulders touch. I want to object, but it starts walking in a random direction first.

“I’ll tell you on the way, please let’s just get out of here. Is that okay?”

“Well, that’s the wrong way. Let me go first. Just – uh. Hold my sleeve or something. Don’t fall behind.”

“Oh.” It smiles, casts its eyes downward. “Okay.” A dark hand hooks into my left sleeve and fists the fabric. I flinch, and we both freeze. Its hand is warm, larger than mine. The moon’s reflecting from the starchild’s eyes when we look at each other.

“Uh. I, I’m so sor-”

“Just shut up,” I press between gritted teeth and start walking. I just want this stupid night to be over soon. “It’s not that far.”

I sort of stumble forwards, the starchild pressed to my side. After a few steps – my eyes are already cast down, walking in the weak glow that the starchild’s body produces – it makes a noise. As if it wants to speak. I don’t stop walking.

“What is it now?”

It jerks up and mumbles an embarrassed “Sorry, I’m so sorry.” Really, do all those mythological-magic-whatever-things apologize so much? Goddamit, I can’t keep myself from feeling sorry for it. And I have no idea if I can just leave it behind once we’ve reached the main path. What if it’s strong enough to take me down?

“I just… wanted to know your name.”

What? Oh, right. Starchild looks at me from the side. I snort and don’t say anything for a while. I’m not in the mood for smalltalk. This is just a necessity, no fucking friendship.

We leave the crash site behind and stumble over rotting logs and squidgy earth, wet from the rain of a night before. The thing on my arm stays silent for a few more minutes. I don’t say anything either, my head’s too busy roaring with thoughts. It recalls old memories, the few good ones I have. That’s what I do when fear threatens to take over.

Starchild starts to talk again when we’re halfway there.

“You still haven’t told me your name.”

I roll my eyes and then cast them down again, because that quick distraction has me stumbling over a fucking root. “Shit, dammit! Don’t just start talking like that!”

The starchild grabs my waist and holds me. I freeze, what the hell is it doing?! Oh, oh right. My feet somehow slipped away on mud and wet moss, and star-thing is putting me back on the rocks we balanced on. The blush creeping up my cheeks is fucking embarrassing.

“Uh. Thanks. I owe you one.”

“How about your name?” the starchild asks, and I swear he’s smirking.

“Seriously? I’m just gonna drop you in town and we won’t see each other ever again.” Oh, shouldn’t have said that. The thing’s smile drops and it makes a face as if I’ve been the one who shot its wing.

“I just – I thought… okay. Sorry.” I can’t just go on walking. Tentative, reluctant, my hand slips up its shoulder and pats the starchild. “I’m Jean.” Shit, its skin is warm and pulses wildly. It doesn’t feel human, and I pull back before I can comprehend what in heaven’s name I just touched. That was, fuck. Weird. Awkward. Good, in a way – what?

“Jean! Jean, that’s – that’s such a nice name.” Starchild leaps down from the rocks we were walking on, its feet splashing in the dirty mud and sloshing my legs in splattering filth.

“Oh come on, hey!” I bite back a laugh - this thing actually made me laugh. This night’s just a horror trip between hell and weird new stray-stars following me home.

“Just tell me yours already, we’re nearly there.” Starchild nods and clings to my arm again, shoulder pressing to mine, waist on waist with dark shimmering skin. The moon’s light is swallowed by its black legs moving next to mine.

“My name is Marco.” 

* * *

 

The turbary rests between a group of large oaks. The swamps of Trost, a large thick lake of gurgling and blubbering mud, lay invisible behind it, hidden from the anxious starchild clinging to my arm.

“Okay, here’s how we’ll do it.”

Marco listens, but his fingers only let go when I rub them off my arm. He’s taller than I am, and in the turbary’s light I finally see that he’s not all black. No – he’s as colourful as the universe itself. There is another galaxy winding along his back, from hip to shoulder. The stars in it aren’t just silver and gold. I get a short glimpse of them when I tell Marco to turn and hide in the bushes until I’ve got the cart.

He turns around, glances at me over his glowing shoulder. “Thank you, Jean. For all of this.”

Marco isn’t ‘it’ anymore, and I’m fucking worried about the leap my heart does when his pitch-black sparkling body dives into the undergrowth.

Why do scary, new things have to be so damn gorgeous?

Marco’s back is covered in endless swirls of stars, and they’re everything from golden and silver to sparks of red and tiny dots of green, teal, sky-blue. His muscles flex when he cowers and peeks from between the branches and leaves up at me. I’m not at all intrigued. No. I’m not fascinated by how he’s not a black monster at all, but a flow of midnight blue on his face and chest that blends to darkness on his arms, legs, down from his hips.

“Jean? Are you going to get that cart?”

“Wha – yeah, ‘course. Stay where you are, don’t come out before I call you.”

My legs are wobbly and weak when I stalk towards the turbary. Where’s the cart? The torches before the small building flicker when I round the house halfway, looking for – ah. Berthold has already loaded the cart? It’s not in the middle of the way where I left it, but instead is pressed to the house’s wall, sitting calmly in the shadows.

I don’t call Berthold’s name. If he’s inside, he’s probably still terrified from what we’ve seen together. Or maybe he’s looking for me in the forest. I wish I could leave a message, I don’t want to worry him. But I need to get home and bring the turf to Reiner. And somewhere, in one tiny corner of my heart, I’m worried about Marco’s bleeding wing.

No, no. I have to pull myself together.

I drag the cart away from the turbary, pull and grunt because now it’s so damn heavy. My arms quiver, it seems that one year in the smithy hasn’t made me nearly as strong as I thought.

“Urghh… M-marco, I need a hand here!”

Marco jumps out of the bushes and looks around. His stars flicker, the glow nearly gone. Maybe it’s his bleeding wing? I’ve got no idea.

We lift the cart together. Marco takes the second bar next to me and pulls. It’s much easier this way. We find a rhythm to walk by on the main path, torches flickering and gleaming in red flames around us. The way back is a delirium, confusion in my head and fear nagging at my stupid little heart. Marco throws me startled glances. He doesn’t get anything, has no idea who I am and what I’m fucking doing. If I’m a traitor.

I could take him to the King and get him executed, his dark head on a stake. They’d probably examine him with rusted torture instruments –

My head starts roaring.

“W-we’re nearly there. See that light? That’s the town. The forest ends over there.”

“Oh,” Marco breathes out, a surprised sigh falls from his lips. His body stiffens, and he sets the cart’s bar down. “That’s where I have to hide, right?”

“Yeah.” I help him with climbing under the turf. Blood spills over my hands when I tuck his wings in, trying not to hurt him too much. But it’s impossible, he’s so fragile with those giant extra limbs, and Marco moans.

“S-stop, I’ll just – do it alone. G-go on. We don’t have m-much time left.”

“You sure?” I ask and look at him once again before I pull a last bit of turf over him. Marco closes his bright eyes and curls into a tiny ball of black feathers and red thickness. “I’m f-fine.”

Pulling the cart all alone is fucking hard, especially with even more weight on it. I’ve only done jobs for Reiner in town before, not in the forest, which are never so far of a distance I have to drag that stupid thing along. But Marco’s hidden under disgusting turf, and he won’t die on me. Not after he’s the reason for me getting out of hell itself.

I don’t ask if he’s okay while I rattle the cart down from the Forest’s hill and towards the town’s gate. The guards let me in with quirked brows – I made it just before they close Shiganshina for the night. A few minutes later and Marco and I would have been stuck outside with a cart of turf, in a night dark as I’ve never seen it before.

While I grunt and drag my load through the alleys and pathways of Shiganshina, sweating like a fucking pig, I notice another weird thing.

The sky is completely starless tonight. Almost, I think while I stop at Reiner’s smithy and drop the cart with a loud groan – almost as if someone’s stolen all light from, all warm glow from the world.

“Hey. Hey, we’re here.”

Marco doesn’t reply.

I hurry around the cart and push against its back, let it rattle loudly into the smithy’s small shed. It’s dark inside, and when Marco isn’t reacting to my whispers, I turn to look for an oil lamp.

“It’s okay, just – just wait a second. I’m with you, I need – “

There’s a fire burning in the corridor leading to the shed where I can light the lamp up. I just have to find the stupid thing. My fingers fiddle in darkness, push against a cold metal tray with a glass figure on top. Fucking finally, Reiner’s old lamp for visiting customers. A can of oil is next to it - my thumb and index close around it. I try to pour some oil into the lamp - my fingers are a quivering mess, oh fuck. I spill half of it because I can’t see a fucking thing. And Marco’s dying, I’m gonna get fired, and my head _myhead!_

“Shit, shit. Fuck, dammit!”

“J-jean…”

Marco whimpers, his dark head peeking out from the load of turf when I glance over my shoulder. No, he’s going to be seen – he can’t –

“Stay where you are!” I whisper back, my voice cracking. Why can’t he just listen to me? I’m offering my help here, taking fucking risks for him and all he does is ruin it all!

Oh God, my head’s bursting, the ache comes back with a violent cackle. It’s all too much, too much happened today. That _beast_ in my head has spoken to me.

The oil lamp slips from my fingers. It shatters on the floor, thousands of glass splinters tingling on the floor.

“F-fuck.”

“Jean, it h-hurts, I can’t – it’s too late.”

Marco’s voice is a low whisper, his bright eyes close when a thin line of blood leaks over the shoulder where his wounded wing is draped.

I’ve fucking failed. I failed to get the turf back in time. My back bends and I fucking _crack_. My knees hit the floor and insanity, desperation –

No, no, NO. I disappointed them, all of them – Reiner, Marco, and eight years ago I ran and screamed when, when –

A sob rips from my throat, a loud wailing as my mind wavers and vibrates from all the fucking shit that I’ve taken for so long. And that forest, it’s been enough to crack me open like a fragile egg’s shell.

I’m so fucking close to just choking on my own mind. I’m trapped, I’m a prisoner of my own soul…

– _Y O U  C A N N O T  E S C A P E  M E_ –

It’s speaking again. I will die, die _die_ DIE

– _Y O U  A R E  D E A D_ –

“Leave him alone.”

A hand presses down on my shoulder, and I snap back.

Reiner, a large mountain of fire, stands behind me, his body a shield against madness roaring from my mind.

The _thing_ is gone immediately. Not one howl of it is left. My head’s wiped empty, deserted. A forgotten battlefield.

I fall back, sink against the cart’s wheel. Tears spill down my cheeks and sob after sob rips from my mouth. I can’t even speak, just roll my eyes and hear the echo of Marco’s softly spoken mantra of “Jean, Jean, Jean.”

“You’re looking for me, aren’t you – starchild?”

It takes minutes, centuries before I blink. Before I find a wrecked piece of strength, somewhere in the last corner of my heart, to look up at Reiner.

The smith lifts Marco off the cart, black wings flooding down his back like a star-littered waterfall. Marco coughs, the blood on his neck a blanket of scarlet over his twinkling spots.

“Reiner. Reiner.” What? I, I don’t understand. Marco is hurt, and Reiner cannot help him. My mind whirrs, buzzes from angst and death and so much blood, blood dripping from the thing’s voice like thick poison.

“You’re safe now.” Reiner’s promise is a growl, and then he lifts me up, too, carries me into the warm and glowing smithy where I’m home. Where Marco has wanted to go all along.

“Don’t worry, Jean. The turf can wait. I need to care for the little star here.”

Reiner smiles, flames reflecting black and golden in his irises.

 _He owes me a damn good explanation_ , I think as I close my eyes and allow sweet unconsciousness to flood me again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm overwhelmed, oh my god. 
> 
> You guys' response to the first chapter was incredible and I cannot thank you enough. I hope you enjoyed this new insight into Jean's head and the final introduction of starchild Marco. Also - how much does Reiner really know? I'll let you guess. 
> 
> All kudos and praise to my lovely beta [carrie](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com/) who's just saving my writing all over again and smoothes out the rough edges that I leave behind. Thank you, babe. 
> 
> A breathtaking amount of you guys made fanart, commented, gave me kudos. Thank you so much! I track the tags starchild!Marco and fic: nightglow. If you wanna leave me comments, fanart etc.
> 
> Translation of Marco's language in order of appearance: 
> 
> Stjarnamir = Starchild  
> plís = please  
> Ski, Í behov skan hilfsra. = You, I need your help.  
> Hereillät = wake up  
> Hereillä es tas? = Are you awake?  
> Skit mâslu sinnens erövskyld! = You need to come back to your senses!  
> Oh Himmel, skìt es hereillä. = Oh thank heaven, you are awake.  
> Í nai skìnt vulnast. = I won't hurt you.


	3. Spark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My tumblr is [ Moami ](http://www.moami.tumblr.com//).

“ **Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars.”**

 - Victor Hugo: _Ninety-Three_  


 

* * *

  
The _thing_ cackles and reaches out to me.

Its fingers touch my forehead, its atrocious substance twists in grim coils, it wraps those cold dark limbs around me and fucking _strangles_ me. Dead rotten holes where there should be eyes grin, all light swallowed by gawking emptiness, and malicious laughter roars and _echoes_ –

Like _hell_ you’re gonna get me, asshole.

“Go away,” I groan, crashing all my willpower down on the fucker.

With all the anger burning and flaring in my chest, the beast doesn’t stand a chance. A strange, vile taste vibrates on my tongue as it contorts under my will, croaking in wrath when I push it back down – _away_.

Shadows dance in my vision as the _thing_ lets go of me, hisses, and retracts into the depths of my slowly fainting dream. The blurred noise of whispering flames grows louder, and it’s enough to jolt me up and awake with a grunt. Dammit, _finally_.

 _It_ ’s gone.

Sometimes it’s easy to fight back.

It’s easy when I’m safe and focused, when all my muscles are relaxed and my mind flows in calm, unconquerable waves. But when I’m alone and lost in the depths of the fucking horrible Forest of Trost, shaking to my core and blood running down my face, it’s all fucking _shattering_ to pieces.

And nothing is easy anymore.

“Fuck, ugh…” My whole body aches like fucking hell. What a way to come back to the living after been slain half-dead by a star, ain’t it?

I dare to blink awake, half expecting to be lying on the cold floor of Reiner’s shed or thrown out on the streets full of garbage and filth. Turns out, I’m in a warm room instead.

An old wooden ceiling patterned by the fire’s light stretches above my head, flames flickering and dancing. So Reiner brought me inside, even after – after _everything_ that happened.

My mind still _roars_ , doesn’t rest for a fucking second. I’m on edge, jittery, flashed by pain and fear and the thunder of a meteor resounding in my head.

At least I’m out of the fucking forest. No idea what’s ahead now, but thank whatever fucking God, I’m not lost in darkness. I’m safe and away from the past and all my fucked up memories.

But – then there’s _Marco_.

The star, the fallen light. Starchild.

I gulp down a gush of bile that rises up, and I try not to think about glowing stars for a second. My stomach twists and gurgles, the nasty taste of blood in my mouth.

Slowly, feeling returns to my cold limbs. I’m sprawled out on what feels like a bed. A ray of morning sun tickles my nose, and I turn to blink into early daylight. A tension I didn’t notice before releases from my shoulders, and I relax.

I’m safe.

The dim light filtering through dusty windows calms my racing heart. I reach up to rub the sleep out of my eyes. My face pulses, the pain setting in nerve by nerve. Last night vibrates in my bones, pumps in my veins as if my heart’s about to explode.

“Reiner?” I call into silence and roll my head around. The same old dream, vivid as fucking always. I’ve been dreaming it since eight years ago, every other night, whenever bad things happened again.

Alone in the forest with beasts surrounding me, their eyes hungry silver stars, breath rotten and foul from sulfur and blood. And there’s the _thing_ , a parasite gnawing at my bones, pulsing with my racing heart and eating me up from inside.

Only that it never said a word before.

It never fucking _spoke_.

Something’s changed, and I’m not sure I want to find out _what_.

I shudder. My fingers clench around something soft. It’s just bed sheets, wrinkling in my grip, crisp and a bit smudgy from dirt.

A thick branch cracks in the fireplace and I _remember_. Last night.

I remember in a storm of memories crashing down on me, a blast of slashing wind and wild lightning tempest, and I fucking _wish_ I was still unconscious.

My eyes squeeze shut and I curl under the blanket, shrink into a mess of shaking limbs and a howl stuck on my lips. Cold breath catches in my throat, together with a broken whimper that rips my chapped lips open into a fucking bleeding mess. The blood stings and burns and smolders like wasted ashes –

I lost my shelter. I disappointed my boss, I fucking _broke_ the only man’s trust who gives a fuck about me – but Reiner still saved me, and he took Marco in, too – the starchild.

Blood on his wing. His helpless sobs.

My fingers not finding the lamp, and then a quiet rustling of feathers when Marco fucking _whimpers_ my name –

My stomach twists. I gag. I’m so sorry, I never wanted it to go like this – I never – oh God, no.

“ _Marco_.” His name sputters from my chapped lips.

It’s my fault if he’s dead.

I sit up straight, flip the covers away harshly and run both hands down my face. I have to look after him. Reiner’s probably by his side, watching out for his wounds. I could help - I know how to deal with deep cuts or too much blood. Fucking villagers.

I have no idea why Marco was looking for Reiner in the first place, why he’s _here,_ among humans, or what he even exactly _is_ – but I don’t give a fuck.

I have to see him.

I need to check on his ridiculous glowing face, make sure he’s not lost his life because I failed all over _again_. His wing was dripping from all the fucking blood…

It’s strange how the thought that Marco might be dead strangles my heart until it bleeds out in my chest, until I drown in fear crashing my ribcage into a thousand splinters. Fuckin’ pathetic, how I cling to everything that’s reaching out to me. To a thing – a guy I barely know, but who still helped me out of this fucking nightmare, lit my way home. And I, all I did –

The arrow in his wing, and the fucking _horrible_ cries when he collapsed –

I jump off the bed. My balance wavers; I’m staggering and weaving in my first steps. There’s furniture in the room’s corners, dark curtains by the windows. An empty table, covered in old speckles and dirt. Reiner’s bedroom.

I tumble forward, unsure whether I have to throw up the sour bile in my throat or not. My vision blacks for a second, dizziness flashing through my head. I continue my way through the room, stubborn and persistent, aiming for the door. I extend my arms to keep my balance.

 _Marco_.

The wooden floor planks creak, dust whirls between my toes. What the fuck, how can Reiner sleep in such a shithole? Fuck, who cares.

 _Marco_.

I couldn’t help him. A starchild’s whimpers echo and bellow in my ears – he’s calling my name, begging me for help and I _can’t fucking move._

All I did was sink down the wall, fucking _useless_ and frightened, please get it out – get those voices out _leave me alone_ , praying for it to stop. And Marco was _dying_ and calling, breathing my name and his light – his light fades and he…

He’s gone, gone, gone.

Again. Again. _Eight years ago._

“G’ mornin’, princess.”

Reiner leans in the door frame and watches my desperate attempts to pull myself together. His hands are covered in blood and what looks like stains of white ointment. He’s not wearing his work apron, and the usual soot powdered over his thick arms is gone. How long has he been watching?

A breathless gurgle screws out of my mouth and I stumble forward. I’ve never been more relieved to see my boss, even if it’s probably the last time ever. I lunge towards him, arms extended.

A shadow falls over Reiner’s eyes and he pushes himself off the frame, coming my way with open arms and a snarl on his lips. “Watch out, idiot.” He cares too much, and it might kill him one day. I try to not let it make my heart jump. Don’t get too attached, don’t put him in danger.

Nobody should care about scum anyways.

“Mornin’? What – did I – how late ‘s it?” My voice is barely a croak, blood dripping down my chin and onto the floor.

Reiner’s arms close around my shoulders. He furrows his brows and pushes me into his embrace, holds me tight. His breath tingles in my hair, low rumble of words rolling like thunder. He smells like fire and iron.

“Easy, princess. Don’ get yourself hurt even more, I won’t have that.” He speaks gently, as if afraid to hurt me even more. “I’ll help ya walk. You slept ‘til mornin’.”

I snort at the nickname and grit my teeth. Princess. The other sentence doesn’t reach my sleep-drowsy brain.

“I ain’t a princess – get off me, I can walk alone-”

I can’t.

My knees are going weak and I’m sinking down into his grip like a doll with broken joints. I’m a fucking mess, face bloody and smeared and body exhausted. The world blurs into a washed-out labyrinth of colours when I blink, my vision fading.

For a moment, I’m gone once again, fading into darkness.

And then Reiner grunts and hauls me across the room, out into the narrow hallway. The scent of mould and dust whirl into my nose and I cough, jerk up again. My fingers tangle in the back of his shirt and his broad chest, and I let him drag me away.

“You never listen, do ya? I said _easy_ ,” Reiner mumbles and wraps his right arm around my waist until it’s stuck under my armpits. He draws me up to my feet again but doesn’t let go. His beard tickles my forehead. Fire and smoke always follow his path, and his skin is so hot that I flinch a bit at the touch.

The smithy’s flames never let go of him; it’s not a job, it’s what he _is_.

“’m fine, lemme go.”

I don’t even believe my own words. Reiner doesn’t, either, and punishes my weak attempt of resistance with heavy silence.

I spit out a gush of blood that’s collected in my mouth, dripping from my lips. It splashes on the wooden floor and paints it dark red. Reiner ignores it. I stem my hands against his embrace and grunt.

“C’mon, I can walk myself.” I glare up to him, hoping he’ll leave me enough dignity to pretend that I’m strong enough.

Pretend. Don’t give away pain or weakness. They find where you’re vulnerable and dig into your flesh with stones and fire.

“Suuure. Princess, you gotta accept help for once in ya life.” He kicks the door open a bit wider and guides me out of the door. His arm is strong and doesn’t leave me any possible way to escape. His other hand presses to my chest and holds me upright while we stumble forward.

“Listen.” I look up to him, try to form some coherent words through the pain pulsing in my lips and temples, pounding and stinging. “Thanks for treatin’ my wounds, but I’m feeling _fine_.”

“You won’t ever listen to me, eh, kiddo?” Reiner shakes his head. I don’t object. There’s something much more important.

“Reiner, the starchild, is he-” Reiner tenses up. Fuck _, oh God._ “No. No, don’t tell me he’s-”

“He’s better than you are.” Reiner’s hand presses down on my heart, and he lifts me a bit off the ground, pushing me hard against his chest. “Lost a lot of blood, but I sewed the wound shut. He’s downstairs - he just woke up, too. Now stop asking questions, you can do that when we’re with him.”

I don’t hear anything but the sweet, blissful word, ‘alive’. I shrink in Reiner’s arms and bite my chapped lips, worry them until the taste of blood chokes my throat, and then I fucking _laugh_.

“He’s… haha. Alive. He’s fucking _alive_.”

The rest of my words fade into a hysterical sound of broken desperation when I throw my head back and laugh, laugh until my soul’s singing and my chest aches.

The starchild is alive and breathing.

Reiner quirks a brow, but focuses on bringing me over to the smithy. Its warm red light shimmers at the end of the corridor, the open door letting a stripe of bright heat flood our way.

 _‘Marco, Marco’_ reins me from heart to head, fingertips to bloody lips. I swallow down tears and screams of relief and just dig my fingers into Reiner’s back so I don’t collapse on the floor and cry my fucking heart out.

It doesn’t matter that I’ll probably be fired. I’ve never been able to save _anyone_.

 _Alive_.

Marco’s okay, and that’s all that keeps my heart beating through the chaos that’s boiling around me. A shudder creeps over my back, coiling around the nubs of my spine and whispering a freezing breeze of ice into my bones, and I fucking _know_ that this is a beginning.

A fallen meteor. A strange, bleeding creature, searching for Reiner. Darkness and dust and the twitch of fear in my heart.

I just hope it’s over soon. The chaos swirling up all around me, creeping up Shiganshina’s walls and infecting my life with a plague of foreign goings-on, all of this _isn’t supposed to happen._

It started with the _thing_. Now there’s a freakin’ star falling from the sky and Reiner knows much more than I ever thought, and I’m afraid of how much he’s involved in this shit.

I fucking _pray_ that none of this will last.

I won’t take any more shit from this world, not after the burden that it’s put on my shoulders. Not after I failed and ruined and clawed myself a place and the right to live. After I’ve lost everyone who ever meant _home_ to me.

Homeless isn’t sleeping on the streets at night and looking at the stars, light blurred through your own tears. It’s missing warmth so much that you dig your dirty nails into everyone who offers you anything, be it a loaf of bread or a job, and holding onto it until it cracks in your hands. It’s hiding when humans pass by, your fingers clenched around a ragged shirt around your thin body, the only thing you own in this world. It’s walking the streets at night, seeing fire behind windows from candles flickering on childrens’ nightstands when their parents kiss them goodnight, and you’re sitting where rats rustle between shit and cold, wishing you had a blanket or a hand cradling your cheek. You wish so hard for someone saying ‘darling’ or ‘sweetie, it’s fine,’ to hear your mother’s voice once again –

_Warm fingers tangling in my shirt, the bright glow of two eyes. A whispered “Jean”, and then – nothing. Marco falling into darkness._

And I know that I won’t let him. I can’t let him fall, not Marco, not that sweet innocent hurt creature that I don’t even know, but – he’s good, and the good guys are never treated fair.

I won’t let anyone die _ever_ _again_ – my heart thrums in a wild, heavy rhythm, shivers crawl under my skin and I wish I had never fucking met him.

Marco has changed _everything_.

“Hey, can we hurry up? I really gotta see how he’s doing,” I ask, and I don’t understand why my fingers urge to touch Marco’s broken wings and make sure he’s fine.

He’s the reason for a growing anxiety in the pit of my stomach, for the alerting roll of thunder through my blood, pulsing and cackling.

It was _his_ appearance that made the _thing_ speak.

Reiner doesn’t reply to my question.

We’re at the smithy’s door, dust and dirt whirling around our ankles.

My left arm’s still wrapped around his shoulder, and Reiner lets me down to stand on my own. I stagger a bit, but it’ll work for now. Light pours out on the floor from the smithy, and a fire crackles behind it, smoke hanging in the air. The scent of melting metal and smithereens of rust. The closest I ever had to shelter, to being tolerated somewhere.

“Think you can manage? Just a few steps. He’s at the fireplace.” Reiner’s face is cold and a shadow hovers over his eyes, the gold inside flaring.

I grimace and mumble “’s fine, I’m fine” before I push the door open and drag myself inside. Reiner comes right after me and slams the door shut, but I don’t even hear him mumbling something or stomp over to sit by his anvil.

Someone says my name, gentle and worried, and the walls that hide my soul away tremble.

“Jean! Jean, are you alright?”

Marco lies in front of the fireplace. His freckles gleam like ghost lights in the dark fen of his body, the thin threads of gold spiraling in his eyes are lively, _warm_.

He’s alive, and his skin glows like the full moon.

All his stars are brighter, more vibrant than in the forest, and the colourful galaxies sparkle when the fire’s flames stream in languid shadows over his shoulders and back. He’s on his stomach, wings extended to his left and right. His wound is covered in white bandages, the arrow in his wing – gone.

He looks so alive, so fucking _fine_ except for the tiny second his smile falters and pain shimmers from under his façade.

And that’s it, my legs give in and I plonk my boney ass down next to Marco with a breathless groan.

Marco giggles. “Are you an old man already?” That tiny noise and the gentle tingle in his voice are all I need right now. It’s enough to keep my thoughts straight and my mind clear, and as long as I focus on the calm light he’s radiating I’m sane. He’s adorable in a fucked-up, strange way, and I push away all thoughts about how he’s saved me as well and how we, together, made it through a horrible night.

I know that we’re connected now. There’s no way I can escape this. If there’s one thing I know about life, then it’s that everything you’ve ever touched, stays with you.

Bonds do not break unless you make them.

I breathe in, fire’s heat itching into my lungs, and I collect all the questions that piled up in me like a hurricane yearning to erupt and extinguish what’s in its way. And then it blurts out, fire at will. _I need answers, and I’ve never found them in my whole fucking life._

“How the _fuck_ are you alive? I saw you fuckin’ bleeding out! Your wing… is it broken? Will you fly again?”

It’s odd, how my first worry is about _him_ being alright and not another outpouring of questions like ‘will you try to kill me?’, or the much more important ‘what do you want from Reiner and why is _nobody_ fucking telling me why he knows you and what’s _going on at all?’_ The urge to grab his shoulders and shake him until he spits it all out pounds and thrums in my head, tingles on the tip of my tongue. But I let him be – I don’t touch him or come closer.

We hover in silence, and I wait for him.

I will get my answers, and if it costs me all my left-over sanity and breaks me into a thousand fucking pieces, so be it. I’ll listen and believe every fucking word that a star, a fallen _night sky_ tells me.

Somehow, I trust him after everything that’s happened in this fucking forest. It’s not much, not that I’d put my life into his hands. But Marco lit my way. God, doesn’t it feel _good_ and warm in my chest to trust again, even if it’s just a little and fickle and fragile like thin glass about to shatter into dust every ticking second.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Marco says quietly and glances over to Reiner, a smile curling his lips just a bit. It’s adorable – fuck, _no_ , it isn’t supposed to be. “I lost a lot of blood, but you brought me here just in time. Reiner treated my wounds. I’ll fly again… I think.”

“But your wing – I saw all the blood-” It was so much, dripping down his feathers. I remember his voice, whimpering and crying, pleading for help that I couldn’t give, with the oil lamp slipping from my hands –

I gulp down the thick lump in my throat and point to his wing, the weird attachment of his foreign dark body. “You bled so much, you… I thought you were dead.”

My heart’s beating hard, thrumming in a stuttering rhythm. The fire warms my stiff limbs. Marco still glows, and he smiles at me with warmth in his bright eyes.

“I know. It hurt a lot, it still does, and I fainted when Reiner fixed me – fixed my wings. You both saved my life.”

“I sewed the wound, he won’t die. The little star here’s a fighter,” Reiner grumbles before I can say another word and flops down next to me, putting a hand on my back to hold me upright, just in case my body decides that it can’t bear all this fucked-up shit happening right now.

And it’s a lie, it’s wrong, and the poison oozes from my lips and tastes bittersweet.

“He saved you. I didn’t do shit. I almost-” _‘Got you killed,’_ I want to say, but Marco doesn’t let me.

“No.” The soft hum of his voice cracks as he whips the word at me.

“But – I couldn’t do anything. I should’ve gotten you inside. The goddamn lamp – If-failed…”

“Jean, no,” Marco says again, and it’s not hurt but pity in his voice and I can’t fucking _stand it._

I clench my fists, grit my teeth until the muscles in my jaw howl in pain. Reiner’s face is chiseled sadness, his large hands resting for once. A slight shiver runs through them when he shakes his head. “He never listens’ to me.” Marco cups my hands and tugs.

“Look at me.” I do, I obey his whispered plea and lock eyes with his flaring moons, those shimmering irises that guided me through the forest with warmth and a splinter of hope.

Marco releases one hand from mine, puts it where his hurt wing is shuffling on the floor with every movement. He touches the feathers, runs his fingertips along the upper hem.

“Without you, I wouldn’t be alive. You brought me out of the forest, even if you just saved yourself. You could have left me. You–” he stops, swallows. His throat bobs up and down, and in the faint light I see cuts and scratches all over his body.

They’re not from his fall, because he landed on me and I caught him with my own body. He’s been through something else. Someone hurt him.

Someone tried to _kill_ him and almost got it done.

Because I’m useless, because my panic attacks and the insane murderous thing in my head made me lose myself and _I couldn’t help him._ I choke on the guilt rising up my throat with the bile like venom from my empty stomach.

He’s kind, and gentle, and I don’t fucking deserve _any_ of it.

I haven’t earned the warm light he’s radiating. I haven’t earned his gratefulness and trust – and then Marco smiles, and he whispers. He whispers words that I can’t believe and won’t _ever_ fucking forget, and it makes my heart ache and sparks a burn that’ll last me for centuries.

“I owe my life to you.”

He’s injured and hurting. He’s crashed down from the sky and fleeing from some unknown fucking danger, and still Marco is cupping my hands in his and whispering, “It’s okay, it’s fine. You saved me.”

And I just stare, fucking stare at his face. Reiner chuckles besides me. “Yeah, I figured you could maybe persuade him.” He swats me on the shoulder. “You did well, kiddo. He was bleeding as fuck, but I couldn’t have saved him without your bein’ so quick to get him ‘ere. Accept his thanks, goddammit.”

I force a nod, bob my head up and down in a stupid slow motion. The world’s spinning again. I might faint and black out again. But it doesn’t fucking matter. Marco’s safe and I… I did something right.

And all he does is smile, sweet and warm, his eyes gleaming with bright light as he slides one hand into mine.

“I’ll be fine, Jean.” He squeezes my palm, the flames reflecting from his dark face. The surprise of velvet skin, of a soft finger tracing my wrist, is enough to shut me up.

What – he’s _warm_ , his skin pulsing and sweating a bit, just like mine. It’s not… not that different to a human, actually. Reiner chuckles and is probably grinning his stupid ass off when heat rises to my cheeks, and I blush for what’s maybe the first time ever.

“Y-yeah, ‘mkay,” I mutter, yanking my hand away. I don’t want to have his touch burning my skin and licking fire across my face. Reiner grins for a tiny second before his face shifts, expression blacking out.

“A’ight, little star,” he says, and Marco’s glance locks with his. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that they both tense up. Reiner doesn’t ask questions now, he commands. “Tell me what’s going on here, why you’re paying me this unexpected visit.”

Oh _hell_ no. I’m not going to let them have a little small talk about why Marco flew over here to, I don’t know, have a tea party with Reiner or whatever.

I will get my answers. For once in my life, I’ll stick up to my guns.

“What the fuck is happening.” I try not to let my voice shake. “Who – what _are_ you? I mean, ‘ _starchild’_ doesn’t really cut it.” I snort and huddle into a tinier ball, hiding away from everyone in the fucking world.

Because it’s all crumbling around the edges, and I’m not ready to endure a storm breaking loose.

“Marco.” His name feels warm and soft on my tongue, I just can’t say it angry. “What’s going on? What do you want from Reiner? How do you know him?”

“Maybe it’s easier if you two just let me tell what happened? There’s… quite a bit to tell, actually.” Marco speaks as if he’s afraid that any word might break us. I think it’s him that might crack any second, though, with his fragile eyes quivering and a wet shimmer flickering under the flames. Is he – crying?

“I – yeah, fine. Just give me a fuckin’ explanation already. What’s up with you, what are you? A fuckin’ mythological creature?” I snort a laugh, then take a deep breath and exhale, and the air snatches all the questions out of me.

“Are you two friends? Reiner, why didn’t you tell me that there are fucking monsters out there-” I stop, glance over at Marco. “S-sorry, it wasn’t meant to… insult you.” He just shrugs and wraps his wings tighter around himself.

“Go ahead, ask him.” I swear he’s going to cry any second.

What the hell happened to him? I shake the worries off and turn to Reiner, a frown burning my face.

Here we are. The one question. I let it roll off my tongue and Reiner freezes besides me.

“What’s out there? What else is out there besides… humans?”

I pull both legs to my chest and cower in front of the fireplace by Marco’s side. It’s quiet. Reiner doesn’t speak, and when I glance over, he’s scrutinizing the star. His eyes have narrowed into flaring gold, and I feel a jitter jolt through my bones.

“I’ll tell you. Both of you,” Marco says. It’s a promise, and now I know he’s close to crying. “I’ll explain what you wanna know, Jean. And I’ll tell Reiner why I’m here, and if I’m still conscious after that, because my wing hurts a lot, you can ask any questions. Okay?”

He’s just a few feet away, wings covering him up to his face, the white bandage peeking out from where his extra limbs come out of his shoulder blades. I bite my lip, worrying it a few seconds until it tastes metallic and calming. Marco looks straight at me, waiting.

I give him a shaky, breathless nod. Marco smiles, reaches out and squeezes my hand once again. I’m okay with waiting a bit longer, because he seems to have more important things to say. And fuck, I don’t want to see him cry.

Then Marco’s eyes find Reiner, and he withstands the cold gold gleaming at him.

“You know what I want to hear,” Reiner says with a quiet in his voice that’s worse than any burst of anger. “It’s simple. Why are you here, little star?”

I fucking want to know what’s going on between those two – how much Reiner knows. What he’s hiding from me.

And why there’s a danger lingering in the planes of his face, a raw wrath that hurts to look at.

“Yes. You want to know what happened, I get that.” Marco stumbles over the words. “It’s just – I don’t know if Jean wants to hear it, he’s already-”

“Tell me,” I interrupt him, nearly lunging forward. I can barely keep my hands from squeezing his, because, goddamn, those are tears in his eyes. “It’s fine. I wanna know who you are, why you’re here, too. Just don’t forget to explain why the fuck you’re a black bird with star sprinkles.”

It’s the truth. I want to know what made him flee here, what Reiner knows and why they’re looking sad and terrified and why I can’t describe the freezing, liquid cold creeping up my spine and stinging in my neck; as if I’m being watched, but there’s nobody besides them, and the fire lighting up their tired faces and Marco’s eyes glowing with tears.

But mostly, I want to know _what in the world_ is strong enough to hurt a creature like him.

A weak little smile quirks up Marco’s dark blue lips. “Okay. It’s just not an easy story, it’s not beautiful.”

“Alright, fine. First your story, and then I get to ask what I want.” Reiner shifts next to me, his back straightening. He leans forward, and I can’t help but mimic him so that we’re both hanging on Marco’s every word. Marco nods and clears his throat, pondering over how to start.

I swallow hard, try to get around the thick lump stuck in my chest.

This can’t be happening. A living, breathing star. I can’t fucking wrap my head around it. Fantasy creatures.

Legends coming true.

Marco shuffles around a bit more and slides closer to the fire, making himself comfortable. His wings are warm from the heat, and I can fucking _feel_ it when one feathered tip brushes my hand for a prickling second. Fuck, that’s too close, my head’s going dizzy. I pull back. No idea what crazy magic he’s putting on me but _goddamn_ , it works.

Marco sighs and cocks his head at me, curiosity and a strange fear lingering in the dark planes of his face. He sighs and rubs both hands down his face, stars sparkling on his slender fingers.

“I’m sorry, Jean.”

They’re thin, I think, his fingers, but I remember how soft and velvety his skin felt – I try not to think about them too much. Or ever again, if that’s possible.

“Why?” I frown, but neither he nor Reiner reply, and I get the feeling that asking isn’t going to make it better.

Marco bites his bottom lip and worries it. His teeth are white and dig into his flesh. I think of last night again and how his light almost died. My heart aches.

“Okay,” he whispers. “I – there’s a reason I came here.”

The thunder of a crashing light, blood and turf. Marco’s whimpers, his shattered wing.

He’s so quiet now, perched before the fireplace, and his fingers fidget with the upper hem of his unharmed wing. The feathers are still smeared with leftover blood; it’s dark on his stars, and it tints their glow scarlet.

He takes a last deep breath, throws Reiner a long look, and starts to tell.

“We – my family and I… we were attacked by hunters.”

He’s shaking, and then the first sob rips from his lips.

Marco’s stars dim, eyes closing and darkness rises all around us. Reiner shifts next to me. It’s quiet.

I can’t breathe.

I know his words before they come. Past memories take me by assault, my mother’s desperate cries when we are being chased and _Jean run run my darling you have to get away –_

Marco’s words are intoxicating, and it’s far too late when I realize that poison is swimming in my blood and pumping in the steady rhythm of my heart. Tears well up in my eyes, and I look at the white bandage where an arrow mangled his wings and hurt him, _hurt him_ so fucking deep.

Marco tells his story quietly.

“I played hide and seek with Stella. My little sister.”

He stops, takes a deep breath. The galaxy across his chest loses light and the colour; his beautiful patterns die into a smear of red and swirling blue on darkness.

God, _don’t tell me_ –

He’s not human, and the thing in my mind cackles and drums the iron walls I built to keep it out. Its fangs blink silver, teeth sharp, eyes rolling and twitching. I blend it out. I drink in Marco’s hurt and pain, and it’s so similar to my own ( _mother’s screams – “Run away, run runrun, Jean!” her voice blurs and fades_ ), and I know how he fucking feels.

When everything’s lost and your insides bleed from rotting raw wounds, and you drown in your own fucking blood.

We’re _prey_ , he and I.

Marco wraps himself in his wings and he’s so tiny, so _vulnerable_ and fucking hurt that I want to hold and protect and defend him with claws and teeth, biting everyone who dares to _touch us_ ever again.

“I had just found her behind the curtains when Mum came running into the house. She was crying s-so hard – Stella asked what was wrong. H-her tiny stars, she’s such a cute girl, they dimmed. A-and Mum… her shoulders were shaking, she had blood on her face. I’ve… I’ve never seen her like that. She pushed Stella into my arms – Dad was shouting, she was screaming, and, oh, we were all so _scared_.”

His words pierce the silence like swords in a struggling body. My fingers slide back into his. Marco’s tears drip down on my skin, salt and fading warmth. I hear his family scream.

He whimpers, a broken broken sound. He’s barely whispering now.

“We had no idea what was happening, this wasn’t – wasn’t _supposed_ to be happening. Nobody’s ever harmed us, we were _fine_ and peaceful – we don’t attack humans. We’re _good_.”

I want to kill someone. I want to devour and rip hearts out and take revenge for someone I barely know. Marco’s breath hitches and catches in his throat. He sputters the words. Reiner slides closer and finally presses him to his chest.

I let go of his hand. And it hurts, it _hurts_ so much, to hear him tell my story and my words, and the pain dripping from his face and bright eyes, the fucking tears he’s crying and his tiny wet voice sobbing.

“Mum pushed me’n Stella out the back door. Stella – she’s just a little _girl_ , I had to get her away – I _couldn’t_ help my parents, you don’t understand! I saw those hunters stalk through our village, and they-”

Marco’s wings deflate, falling down to the packed dirt, and tears stream down his freckled cheeks. He’s looking at me.

His bottom lip quivers, and I can’t look away. The fire’s flames shrink; the wood’s almost burnt away. Reiner shifts and pulls him closer into his strong, warm hug. Marco gasps for air, another rippled sob breaking loose from Reiner’s tight hold. He goes on, and he’s so fucking brave and _good_.

And he’s blaming himself, he’s putting all the guilt on himself for not helping, and I can’t – can’t stand to _listen_ –

“So many hunters – their torches, their eyes – they slaughtered _everyone_. Fire and blood, blood all over - my parents, my sister – I’ve never seen her so afraid.”

Marco’s fingers talk, illuminating his words. He gestures, a lot, and the tears welling up in his eyes make everything a hundred times worse. He’s dying with them, his heart is ripping and tearing into pieces with every cry he remembers. Life is darkness and the howls of wolves, but it’s our own monsters that devour us.

“I took – I took my sister and ran, we hid behind our house. My dad tried to distract them. There was so much smoke everywhere, and Stella was crying – she’s only ten, she can’t do this – not on her own. I couldn’t leave her behind, but my parents - we got separated. Then our house went up in flames, and I – I heard them. I heard my father begging for mercy, my mother screaming.”

“Marco,” Reiner says. “That’s enough.” Please, please stop him. I can’t take this.

I didn’t realize that I’d pressed both hands against my ears and bit back a ragged sob, just like Marco. I don’t notice until Reiner let go of Marco and lays him down, and I find my fingers tangling into black starchild hair, and it’s all okay.

The fire reflects on tears and stars.

“I.” Marco’s wing is broken. He’s lost everything. “Stella got away from me. M-mum shouted my name, and Stella ran to her. She… Mum screamed ‘Reiner’, and – and then the fire-”

I haul Marco into my lap, his head heavy and shaking. He curls around me, it’s only natural, and I hold him. His tears drip, and my skin drinks them, my hands soon wet but I don’t fucking care.

“It’s not your fault.” I know it’s not enough. Nothing is ever enough, not with the world burning everything you’ve loved and leaving you behind. A cruel mockery, and I know that he asks himself – _why didn’t they take me?_

It’s the same question that haunts my dreams, and the pain is unbearable. It’s roaring or whispering, and you can’t ever erase it. It’s there, and it kills you from inside.

Marco claws into my pants, fists the fabric and cries. His wing lands on my shoulder, the other crumpling underneath him. I don’t jolt, I don’t brush them off.

He sobs again, a small, dark noise. “She said I had to find you.” He glances up at Reiner, who’s still as a mountain. His nostrils flare, large hands clenched into fists. “She said I have to tell you something.”

“And what would that be, little star?” Reiner’s a surging hurricane contained by human skin, and he comes down on one knee to Marco. Their hands touch when Marco reaches for him, and Reiner squeezes until the small black hand vanishes in his own.

I hold my breath. Those words aren’t for my ears, and they know, but Marco says them anyways.

“He has returned. We are at war.”

His voice cracks, and my old life falls apart.

“Run.”

* * *

 

I’ve always been too curious about things.

The world is endless, and being forced to stay in Shiganshina because you can’t leave through the stupid forest is frustrating and a fucking nightmare. I’ve been stuck here my whole life, working and living from hand to mouth. The streets don’t give you anything for free – you have to claw and bite and rip from other people to get a piece of bread or a ragged holey blanket to sleep under, toes curling and freezing in the cold winter’s breeze.

You don’t mess with other people’s stuff if you want to live, and that’s the big fucking mistake I made, in the forest, with the starchild. I should have left him behind, but instead I decided to help him, and it’s already too late.

My mother used to say: _‘We never forget anyone we meet. It just happens that we don’t remember them, or the traces they left behind in our soul.’_

It sounds fucking cheesy and ridiculous, and I wish I didn’t believe in fucking fairy tales or bed time stories anymore.

That I could brush it off as bullshit and go on with everything. The urge to jump up and leave the smithy, run into Shiganshina’s gawking abyss of streets and vanish, never come back to Reiner and Marco is fucking _drilling_ in my head.

Only that it’s a little late for that, and all my senses screech under the certainty of _‘it will never be the same again’._

Because legends came true, myths crashed through the thin translucent walls of my fragile everyday life and let my future, everything that I’ve fucking built, _combust_ in a sea of flames.

“You won’t tell me anything.”

Marco sleeps in my lap, curled around my body like a kitten searching for human warmth. His breath floods into the crook of my arm where his nose brushes my skin under pushed-up sleeves. He’s been sleeping for hours now. My legs are tingling, but I can’t think of getting up and waking him.

Reiner stops rummaging in an old cupboard at my voice. He hasn’t said a word since Marco fell asleep after telling us what happened. He hasn’t spoken since the star gave in to exhaustion and his injury, and of course I didn’t hesitate when he asked if I could stay.

Since then, it’s gone from late midday to afternoon, and the night sky outside is dark without any stars to be seen. The fire’s bigger now; Reiner put more wood into it. He brought me food and some milk, and didn’t ask why I didn’t go home to Mrs. Dot.

I can’t stand the silence. He’s avoiding me. I frown when Reiner walks past me once again, carrying a small box and placing it somewhere else where I can’t see it without throwing Marco off my lap.

He shifts in the same moment, nose nuzzling deeper into the crook of my arm, and his right, wounded wing wraps around my waist. Fucking adorable freak. He’s unlike anything, and the knowledge that he’s going through the same hell as I did lights up a burning sympathy for him.

Too good for this world.

Reiner slumps down next to me, pushing another small loaf of bread into my left hand, the one that’s not busy being wrapped halfway around Marco and providing him a nice soft pillow.

“Thanks.” I stuff it down in large bites. I’m still fucking hungry – I haven’t eaten since he brought soup after Marco fell asleep. But my hunger can wait. I’m good at taming the monsters within me, be it thirst or wrath. The only thing I don’t have is patience.

“Fuckin’ tell me what that means.” Reiner looks up from his own bread and right at me. He examines me, and I feel like a mouse in front of a snake. Has he always looked that dangerous, that – _wild?_ No. Or maybe I was just too blind, as I was blind to things like Marco.

“Jean.” His voice saying my name jerks me. Reiner’s never sounded so worried, so angry before, his words drilling into my brain. “I can’t explain anything right now. I ain’t got no way to tell you, and I ain’t the person to do that. But-” He raises a hand when I want to object, silencing me again. “I need you to promise me somethin’.”

Disappointment weighs me down. I slump down over Marco, his wing wrapping me in dark night sky and shielding us away. I’m so tired. I don’t want to hear any lies or excuses, I need the fucking truth. But Reiner isn’t giving me anything.

“I suppose I can’t do anythin’ but wait until you decide to fuckin’ explain me why all hell’s breakin’ loose.” I turn away.

Reiner smiles, weak. I catch it from the corner of my eyes. He reaches for the blanket he’d sat on and shoves it over to me.

“Get some sleep. You’ll need it. Promise me you’ll stay with him, no matter what.” I shrug and gently move Marco around, put him down as softly as possible without waking him up. He makes a tiny noise and wraps himself around me as soon as I lie down. Great, I’ll have to sleep with a star-freckled constrictor.

Reiner spreads the other blanket over me and doesn’t leave his place by Marco and my side. “What are you gonna do?” I ask, my eyes already falling shut. It’s all been too much. I’ve stayed awake for hours, just watching Marco’s chest rise and fall under heaving breaths. It’s stupid, how fear crawled up my back whenever his stars seemed to go dim again or he winced when his hurt wing moved unconsciously.

He’s hurt deep down, his core fractured and splintered into pieces. Even in sleep, he’s losing himself. I hold him tight to my chest and don’t know why I’m doing any of this.

Reiner smooths his large, calloused hand over my shoulder. “I’ll watch over you two, no worries.” I yawn and nod, and just before I fall asleep, I ask one last question.

“Hey, ‘f you not gonna tell me anythin’ about this fuckin’ war or how you know a freakin’ starchild – how can you stay awake for two days straight?”

Reiner’s sad, dark smile follows me into my dreams, and I don’t know if it’s imagined or if it’s true, but I swear I hear him whisper:

“I don’t sleep.”

My dreams are full of dusty rooms with dirty floors, of smudged bed sheets that haven’t been used in years – and a black silhouette with red stars on its skin, screeching and screaming as it chokes me. The blood on its skin turns the swirling galaxies red.

I sleep with questions and fear, and with the broken cries of a lost child haunting me.


	4. Wound

**“I look at you and see all the ways a soul can bruise, and I wish I could sink my hands into your flesh and light lanterns along your spine so you know that there’s nothing but light when I see you.”**

— 

| 

_Shinji Moon:_ _The Anatomy of Being_  
  
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When I wake up, the world’s still dark outside and Marco is by my side, knees pulled to his chest and eyes watching the fire. The flames are nothing more than a faint glow now, shimmering between ashes and remains of scorched wood. A spark flashes, flares briefly before it dies, and something stirs inside my head. I blink a few times, try to put the scattered pieces back together – a dream, someone calling my name.

Then it clicks.

The scent of blood and rotten flesh is back, and why did I try to remember anything? It comes down, crashing, fast. The remnants of my nightmare return hollering, combined with a sharp pain in my neck, and I groan as I sit up and run a hand down my cold face. Fuck.

Not again. Give me a goddamn break. It’s ironic, how I should be used to all kinds of nightmares, screeching inside my head day and night and all hours of fucking _always_.

But I’m not. I’m not.

I can handle the bruises I get when children throw rocks at me. I can handle their hatred and disdain, the shadows falling over their eyes when I pass by. But dreams are revenants, and my bad luck’s enough to let them come back again and again.

You can’t forget the smell of your father’s blood.

You can’t forget your parent’s grotesque, blurred voices dripping from pain, your name blurted out between cries for help. Help that won’t come. A whisper floating in the air, words you don’t understand, but they awake old instincts inside you – your mind’s exploding, fucking _begging_ you to run. You can’t move.

A hand brushing your cheek, a fleeting touch. Warmth, for one last time. Your name, soft and trembling.

And you never, _never_ forget the memories of their last screams, drenched in fear, how they shrilled and fucking _echoed_ in your head before a deafening roar rose above them – and silence.

Thick. Black. Filling your head, your veins, pulsing with the rhythm of your fluttering heart.

And you wish you could have _done_ something. You wish you were dead in their place.

You wish and hope and it’s all in vain.

I have never saved anyone.

Marco turns his head when I sit up. He’s still not anywhere near human, still scary and strange with his darkness and stars, but we’re both broken and I’d do anything to fill some of the emptiness that my dream left behind.

And maybe that means that we have to get along, that we’re in this together now. The flames reflect off his skin, covering him in light and flickering shadows. He’s not dangerous.

He’s just lost.

I’ve got no strength left in me to be afraid of him.

We’re alone in the smithy, and it’s all that’s left of our lives. The last remains of places we used to call home, people that are dead or just gone, fragments of everything we built. I don’t know anything about him, but he had a family. He had a sister.

I can’t stand the silence between us. I throw a look outside, wonder if it’s already day and if I have to work, a distraction I’d take with open arms. Anything to forget blood, dreams, fear. But the sky’s still dark and starless, no trace of a sunrise. I probably slept a few hours.

I catch Marco staring at me when I look back at him, and then I decide to do something I’m fucking horrible at – talk to him.

“Morning.” My voice croaks, and I pull a grimace and clear my throat. “Fuck, what a night. You can’t sleep either?” Small talk, Jean, come on. Can’t be that hard.

Marco stares, unmoving, eyes wide and shimmering. Then, he shakes his head, a slow wave side to side. “N-nhh.” The noise he makes is like a bell tingling together with a hum that’s probably supposed to sound agreeing. Weird. Is the tingling a part of his language?

“Oh. I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it. He shrugs but doesn’t reply, and there’s more silence.

We just sit and stare at each other like deer before a hunter, and – he’s probably waiting for _me_ to do something. Oh. Right. I practically had a panic attack in the forest when he crashed down on me, and another one when he tried to talk to my scared ass. Fucking considerate star, trying to respect boundaries. Seriously? This supernatural… whatever-he-is more sensitive than I’ll ever be. I hate that it makes me feel guilty, seeing him that nervous. And fuck, he’s probably more scared of me than I am of him. Almost like I’m the monster here.

Oh, whatever, forget it. I’m the one who’s got a terrible voice talking to him all the time. He’s just a flying fluffball of feathers and stars.

If anyone should be called monster, it’s me. The townspeople would agree.

I clear my throat and shift a bit to get the stiffness out of my cold limbs, hoping that he’ll say something. I don’t want to spend my days next to a mute starchild too afraid to talk to me. I wish I knew how to comfort people. Or starchildren. Or how to be good, or nice, or a _friend_ to someone.

As soon as I move, a shiver runs through Marco’s wings, their tips curling on the ground as if he’s grasping for something. I freeze again. There’s silence, thick and heavy, lurking between us like an animal on the hunt. Marco blinks a few times, a shiver running through his body. Is he – afraid? God, I was definitely an idiot back there in the forest. Scared an innocent star shitless. Great job, Jean.

Just when I’m about to apologize, he draws his wings close and makes room for me in front of the fireplace, throwing me a last shy glance before hiding behind his wings’ hems. It’s an unspoken question, an offer for me to join the warm spot.

I reply by shimmying over and huddling next to him. He looks away again, pale eyes flickering over to the fire.

We’re both lost.

I wish I knew what being loved felt like, how humans bring comfort when they’re lonely or gone astray. I wish I knew the words that mothers whisper to their children when the bad dreams come. I wish I had anything left from my parents, _anything_ but memories of blood and screams and death.

I wish I could give Marco fire, wish that I could send a meteor into his heart so it’d explode into sparks and dust and light him up in the gentle warmth that he needs.

I don’t have any of that.

“Hey,” he says, quiet. Finally.

“Hi.” My voice croaks and promptly refuses to work. It’s gone hoarse from yesterday. I sound like a dying frog.

Marco giggles a bit, and there’s a tiny smile on his lips for a second, flashing bright like the sun. And then, gone again.

“You sound funny. Like a raven.”

“Yeah, great, thanks man.” I snort and rub my throat, and Marco does the tiny laughter thing again, his mouth widening into a genuine starry smile. It’s shy, as if he’s afraid to show it, but it’s there. _Cute_ , my mind sings and I bite the inside of my cheek.

Oh _fuck_. I shouldn’t like this. It’s cute, though, because his wings look like they giggle too, the tips curling and twitching. I clear my throat again, cough till the roughness inside is gone and my tongue unties itself.

What the fuck do you tell someone who’s lost everything?

Back then, eight years ago, they didn’t tell me anything. They just threw bigger rocks when I returned and begged for food.

My glance falls on his wing. The bandage around the root is drenched in blood, feathers disheveled. A few are missing around the wound. I shiver at the thought of Reiner plucking them out to tend to Marco’s wound. Or maybe they just fell out.

“Hey… Marco?” I want him to know that I care, that he’s not just anyone now. Not just any monster. I can at least offer help.

He winces and shrinks into his wings, glancing at me over the edge of them. “Y-yeah?”

“Are you alright?”

“…What?” His face goes from scared to taken aback. His defense of feathers lowers, but his fingers curl into fists around the blanket in his lap. Did I do something wrong?

“I mean, how – how are you feeling?” It’s silent, my words echoing between Reiner’s old anvil and the fireplace’s warmth. Marco stares at me like I’m insane, and my brain whirrs, why, why, why.

He takes a deep breath, looks at like I slapped him right across his face.

“Because you – you must be exhausted after everything…” And then it clicks in my head and my mouth falls shut, but it’s too late. He thinks I’m talking about that fucking fire.

“You’re kidding, right?” Marco’s voice is low, dangerous. His smile has faded.

Oh crap. Shit, no.

He’s _anything_ but alright, and I should _know_. I don’t think before I speak, bad fucking habit. The words just slip from my tongue, impossible to hold back. Damage done – Marco’s still looking at me like I’m crazy, his brows furrowed, eyes narrowing into thin glowing slits.

Fuck. I’m really, _really_ goddamn bad at this. God, I just wanted to know whether his wounds hurt, I didn’t want to remind him of his probably dead parents! Never learned how to deal with people, really. I thought that it’s polite to ask how he feels. But that’s when you’re talking to friends, when you’re chatting with the baker or the merchants on the market.

He isn’t fucking _alright_.

Marco takes a deep breath and – nods. He fucking _nods_. It looks fake, unnatural, the smile glued to his lips.

“I’m fine, I guess, yeah. Thanks for asking. My family’s probably dead but I’m _peachy_.”

I know sarcasm when I hear it, and that was a blast right into my face. He glares at me, not angry but helpless and that’s even worse, it’s so much _worse_. I can’t breathe for a moment, can’t suck air into my lungs until words spill from my mouth. Just how much can you fuck up with a single question? Majorly, that’s how much.

“I – fuck, sorry. I didn’t want to – I didn’t mean your family or… anything like that. I meant your wing. If the wound still hurts.” I swallow, the lump in my throat gets thicker. “I didn’t want to remind you of, you know. Of what happened. I’m sorry.” I rub my neck, glancing at him from below. He shrugs, turns away from me and puts a feathery wall up between us. Shit.

“I’m fine,” is all he says, voice scratchy.

I want to ask whether he needs help with the bandages. I want to help. My breath hitches, hurts and stings in my throat. Marco shrinks, he’s so small there in front of the fire. His wings are a wall, a barrier between him and the real monster here. _Me_.

“Can I help you? Do you need anything-” Words, come on Jean, this isn’t so hard, “I could change your bandage. Looks fucking horrible, all that blood.”

“You aren’t obligated to help me. Not anymore. You brought me here, that’s enough. You did all you could.” Marco spits the words, bitter and rough.

No. No, don’t do this. Don’t tell me it’s _enough_ when I almost let you die.

Every word tastes like acid, sounds like liquid poison dripping from his lips. He’s tiny, vulnerable in the way he’s curled up into a ball of feathers and pain.

“You don’t have to talk to me. I know you’re afraid, I know you think I’m a monster. It’s – it’s alright. Just leave me alone. Leave me alone… I’m not dangerous.”

A branch in the fire cracks, sparks fly from the dancing flames. Sorry doesn’t really cut it, but what am I supposed to say? How does comfort work, or support, or – pity? No. I didn’t want pity, back then when my family – when they died.

I didn’t want fucking pity or a pat on the shoulder along with ‘you’ll be better’.

I wanted to have my parents back.

I snatch my blanket from the floor and wrap it around my shoulders, just to be busy and so I don’t have to bear with the silence and because it’s fucking cold when I’m not closer to the fire. Marco eyes me from the side as if I’m about to eat him alive.

A fucking three-year-old is better with people than I am.

Maybe I better shut up. But I have to say something. Marco isn’t a monster, and I – I’m not afraid anymore.

“Look. Back in the forest, I’m sorry that I – I was scared because you just fucking _fell_ from the sky, crashing down on me, and you fucking glowed so what was I supposed to do! I had no idea. You could have killed me! But you’re _not_ a monster and now I know-”

“You don’t have to apologize, I said it’s _fine_!”

I wish he’d scream at me. That he’d hit me or anything else. But not this.

His wings rustle and he opens them a bit so I can see his face, and we’re looking at each other, his galaxies vibrating with colour. There are tears in his eyes, dripping from his starry cheeks, quiet, wordless. They vanish in dark hands when he rubs them over his face, and his voice is just a quiet, ragged whisper of “i-it’s fine, ‘s fine…”

No, not a whisper. A sob.

He’s crying. He’s crying and hiding under his wings like a child, he’s been chased and shot and almost fucking killed, and he’s alive, breathing, bearing the pain that a fucking arrow bored into his flesh.

He’s so goddamn _strong_ , and I don’t know what to do to make his tears stop. I don’t know how you’re supposed to give comfort or warmth and now I’m sitting here like a fucking idiot who just reminded Marco that oh yeah, right, his parents are probably dead.

I never learned how to heal. Not myself, not others. I don’t rebuild or comfort. I’m a bad omen. The whole town wants to see me dead, but they’re too fucking scared to wipe me off the earth because – because wherever I go, nothing but destruction follows me along.

There’s a row of brighter stars, right around his left eye. They’re golden and twinkle when Marco squeezes his eyes shut and breaks into another ragged sob, and I can’t.

I _can’t._

He’s – he doesn’t deserve those tears.

I can’t just fucking sit here and watch him cry. I can’t help, I can’t watch, so I’m doing what I can do best and just _act_.

“Wait a second. Stay there.”

Marco looks at me with tear-filled eyes and hiccups softly when I get up and walk over to Reiner’s anvil. The bandages and bottle with pure alcohol are under one of his old lockers where he keeps his tools and gems for the sword’s handles, and I grab it along with a silver knife and a metal clamp from one of those baskets full of trash and leftover work pieces that Reiner’s got standing around everywhere. I sit back down next to Marco and spread the stuff out in front of him, showing that I didn’t get anything to hurt him with. His eyes go dim and he’s hiding deeper inside the fluffy cage of his wings, looking up at me with a watery glance.

“What’s all this stuff? What… what are you gonna do?”

I feel really terrible, but I don’t know what else I can do. I can only offer help and keep my mouth shut about everything else.

“I’m sorry. Really. For the shit I said, for calling you a monster earlier. But just lemme change your bandage? You can go back to ignoring me afterwards. Promise.”

I raise my hands in defense - the knife’s on the floor, nothing dangerous here at all. I stare at him and just hope he won’t be mad anymore. Maybe he noticed that I’m a fucking failure with anything that comes close to human interaction (or comforting supernatural extraterrestrial miracles, whatever).

Marco slowly flattens his legs against the floor, one wing pressed against his body, the hurt one resting behind him. He bites his bottom lip, glancing at me as if I’m about to eat him alive any second.

“O-okay. But… be careful. And what’s the knife for?”

Thank god. I almost grin when he’s shifting closer, turning to show me his injured wing. He still glances over his shoulder to look at me, but it’s a start.

“I need to cut the bandage when I’m done. It’s too long for your wing.” I slide the knife over to him in slow-motion and he snatches it up, presses it somewhere against his chest behind his dark wing. I wait while he’s examining it, glance flickering between me, the knife, and the roll of white bandage between us.

The silence stretches.

“Alright?” I ask after breathless minutes.

He hesitates. I can’t blame him. It takes a forced smile from me and an encouraging nod, then his face softens the tiniest bit. The flames’ glow reflects on his skin, lets his stars radiate golden light.

“Alright. Okay. Please, just… don’t hurt me.”

“No!” He winces when I burst out the word. His big bright eyes make him look like a puppy whose tail has been stepped on. Fuck, and again I feel guilty – for hurting him, for his wing. For his family.

“I mean,” I clear my throat, and he relaxes when I try a crooked smil., “I won’t. Trust me, please. I just want you to be okay. You saved me, I’m gonna help you. Deal?”

Marco examines me for a second, brows furrowed into shadows over his face. He extends his hand, reaches for my face and tries to press his thumb to my forehead. I back away, reflexes making me lean away and frown at him.

“Uhm. What exactly are you doing?”

“You said we’re making a deal.” Marco’s thumb is still trying to rub against my forehead, right between my eyebrows, but I don’t let him. He’s close now, leaning into my personal space – no stop that, weird things will happen if people confuse or surprise me – and for some reason he smells a bit like honey and wood. At least he’s smiling again, while I’m confused as hell. I wave my hand through the air into his direction, signing that he should back the fuck off.

“Yeah, I mean – we are. But why are you pawing me?”

“Oh. It’s… humans don’t do that? It’s how we seal a deal or an oath. We touch or kiss each other’s forehead.” Marco shimmies back and retracts his hand, nervous now. That’s kinda cute, though, and I laugh a bit when he’s frowning at me like I’m the one who did something strange. This starchild is one of a kind. It makes him more human, more believable. It calms my racing heart, knowing that he means well.

“No, we don’t do that. But it’s alright. You should just ask before you touch someone, y’know. Don’t go around touching people’s foreheads.”

I still grin while I raise my hand and swirl it through the air, signaling him _‘turn around’._ “And you definitely shouldn’t kiss anyone’s _any_ body part without asking. Can get pretty awkward.”

“Okay. Sorry.” Marco glances over his shoulder and smiles, head lowered. “I didn’t know that you’re different. It’s just a habit, I suppose – like shaking hands? Humans do that, too, right?”

“Yep. That’s how we usually seal deals, actually. And don’t worry, it’s alright,” I reply with a shrug and unroll the bandage in my lap, cutting off a long strip with the knife. “I’ll get started now, okay? Just hold still. And ah, I mean I have to touch you now, so-”

“Oh. Yeah, I’ll just – wait a second.” He turns around, finally, and situates himself in front of me, blanket wrapped around his lower body. His back is naked, wings opening up like feathery doors to reveal swirling galaxies of gold and blue along his spine.

And here I am once again, hesitating. I shouldn’t be weirded out by his thumb on my forehead or his harmless wings when he’s already been on top of me with his full body – and this is _definitely_ the wrong time to think about a starchild riding my lap.

Marco is done unfolding his wings and holds them calmly, head falling forward between his hunched shoulders. His left wing touches my leg, flaps up and down until it stays calm and rests on top of my knee.

“Can I leave it there? It’s more comfortable. If – if it’s alright.” He swallows and looks at me over his shoulder, lips parted in a search for a word. His shoulders are tense, still nervous. The blanket crumples a bit, and I bet he’s clinging to it with tight fists. “I flew really far, and it was exhausting, and my muscles are sore.”

“Yeah, it’s – it’s fine. Just hold still, I don’t want to hurt you.”

His smile is bright and warm. “Thank you.” He’s too _good_ , too nice for me. He shouldn’t be here and say thank you to someone who’s more of a beast than he could ever be with his innocent stars and dreams imprinted on his skin.

And it’s not just a _thank you_ for me functioning as a resting spot for his wings. We fall into silence as I gently touch the root of his right wing. A shudder runs through Marco’s back when I push the feathers around the wound aside.

“Ouch, that – ow!”

“’m sorry.” I pull my hands back, raising them in defense. “Can you bear with it? I haven’t even looked at it right, but that’s some nasty shit you got there. I gotta clean it out, there’s pus in it.”

Marco makes a gagging noise and clasps both hands over his mouth, turning a bit to look at me with wide eyes. “But Reiner said it’ll be okay. He said it just needs time to heal.”

Something is strange about his reaction. Wherever my fingers touch, he winces and tries to shrink away under them, as if he’s trying to flee my hands. What the fuck is wrong? Didn’t he try to touch me just seconds ago?

I shrug and slide my hand onto his shoulder, squeezing it gently. He relaxes into my touch, head dropping into his hands. “Sometimes, wounds get infected. You don’t know if they’ll heal well until sometime later. Not unless you’ve watched the wound for a few days. And that one looks… well, shitty.”

I laugh, bitter, and rub my thumb over his shoulder in soothing circles. Then I reach up to Reiner’s workbench for a soft clean tissue and wipe it along Marco’s wound, pushing it under the old bandages and loosening them at the same time.

But Marco suddenly pulls back and howls, and all my senses of danger go into alarm mode. Something is so wrong, so _off_ , that I cringe when Marco whimpers at my touch. “Oww, no let go, that hurts!”

I wince, too, because his wings slaps across my face when he lunges forward, crawling away from me and cowering with his wings pulled close. Shit, that wound is worse than I thought. I open the folded tissue, and there’s pus and blood squelching inside, along with a few leftover splinters from the arrow. Shit.

“Fuck.” I set the tissue down. “Okay, I’m sorry it hurt. Come back, please. We gotta remove the bandages and get that shit out of your wound, or the infection’ll get worse.” Is it because of me or is it just the pain? His weird behavior… before, he just looked exhausted and a bit afraid. Definitely because I called him a monster, and I’m sorry for that. I furrow my brows and look at him more closely. “So? Let me help.”

Marco stares back at me and then, slowly, shakes his head. His fingers are clenched around the blanket over his lap. “Do we have to do this?” he asks, sliding back to me. His wings flutter a bit and Marco whimpers, slumping down again and howling.

“Ow, ow shit that hurts…!”

“Don’t move your wings, you’ll make it worse! Of course it hurts, but you have to pull through this.” Fuck, what am I supposed to say? I try to push the tissue to his wound again but Marco tosses his head, shoving his hand against my chest, and I stumble back with a surprised _‘oof’._

“No, no it hurts too much – just leave it like this, let me go!”

No, come on. Don’t do this, don’t look at me like I _want_ to hurt you.

I raise my hands and step closer as if I’m nearing a wild animal. Marco fidgets and reaches back to touch his wound, whimpering when he pulls his fingers back and sees the blood. His mouth opens in a panicking, mute scream.

“See?” I say, voice hoarse, hands still up where he can see them. There’s blood, too much blood. “This ain’t a trick to hurt you. That wound will go on being a bitch if you don’t let me see.”

“I… n-no, it hurts… just let it be, okay. Please.” Don’t look at me like that. Don’t look at me like I’m a monster. I want to help, I swear. I’m never – I’ve never hurt anyone because I wanted to. “But I have to, just – it’ll be better after I-” I try to be reasonable, try to push some sense into his head. Another step closer…

“No! No, it’ll just hurt, we could wait for Reiner and… he’ll know what to do-”

“Wait.” He’s gone? “Where’d he go?”

Marco makes a twitch with his shoulder that probably means ‘don’t know’. “He was just leaving when I woke up. You were asleep, and he said I should let you be. Said something about business he had to do. Can’t we just wait for him to-”

“It’s because of me, right? You… you think I’ll fucking rip out your wing or shit. I’m better with wounds than him.” My mind roars, bellows. I curl my fists into the fabric of my pant and grit my teeth till it screeches inside my head.

What if he knows that I’m bad luck? That strange things happen around me. That the first woman who gave me shelter lost her child during birth and died hours later. That the stable I slept in next burnt down from a fire that couldn’t be extinguished for three days. That wood breaks and market stands might collapse when I touch them for too long, and that metal sometimes bends and shivers in my fingers like it’s afraid of me.

How? How can he know what I am – who I am? It’s impossible, unless Reiner told him that I’m a freak. But he left us alone. It’s a sign of trust, he wants me to care for Marco, right? Nothing strange has happened yet, not since he and I met – right?

No, it’s not because of _the thing_. He _can’t_ know. It’s just that I called him a monster in the forest, it’s just that I said I’d thwack him with a branch if he touched me. Yeah. That’s it.

I give it a last try, and this time I’m _begging_. “Is it because I called you a monster? Talk to me, just – just let me help. Please.”

Marco doesn’t reply. He just wraps himself back into his feathery cocoon. We sit there like wolf and prey, and it takes me a few more breathless moments of silence to realize that I’m the monster. I’m the wolf. I’m a human, one of those beasts that tore Marco away from his family, and I’m probably everything his nightmares are built from even if he doesn’t know yet.

Goddamnit. Enough.

A thin thread in the back of my mind snaps, and then I whirl Marco around and force him to face me, my fingers curled around his hunched shoulders. His eyes go wide, he makes a dark scared noise and slaps my hands off of him. But I don’t let go. I hold him there, because he has to stay still, because he has to understand.

My voice isn’t angry. I don’t scream, I don’t hurt him, and he chokes on words when I start to speak in a shaky whisper, when my fingers slide off of him and I sink down to the floor, powerless.

I’m sick of everything. I’m sick of being a beast.

I’m not mad at him. I’m begging – for mercy, for him to listen, for anything. For someone to finally see that I’m not what the world says I am. I can try, I can – I don’t want to be a monster.

“If you want to wait, _fine_. Fucking wait, do whatever you want. But I’m trying to save you here! I’m trying to save your wing and your life and I’m fucking sorry for what I said in the forest because – because I haven’t seen anything like you ever before and I was _scared_!”

My breath rattles, I’m crumpling the blanket in my fists, knuckles white and rough from a year of work in the smithy to get off the streets. To live a life without fear, without scars from stones being thrown against my head.

Marco has gone silent. His glow pulses, vibrates, and I can’t look at him because I’m _so_ fucking close to crying.

“Please. _Please_ , fucking _God_ , let me help you. You can hit me or hurt me if you think I’m doing anything that’s not good for you but this wound will – it _will_ kill you, trust me. You’ll lose your wing. You won’t fly again. Let me… let me save you. I know how to treat wounds. Did it for myself often enough.”

And now I push up the sleeve of my shirt and show him the long, fainted scar that’s slithering from my wrist to the crook of my elbow.

Where a group of boys thought it’d be fun to hunt the “cursed boy” down, to hold him on the ground while they checked whether his blood really was black and if he screamed like a human when he bled.

I bleed red and wet and with screams ripping from my throat. I bleed like any scared, crying child.

My lips are chapped and raw when I bite them, and there’s a faint trace of earth left on my tongue. The Forest never really leaves, neither Marco nor me. That night weaved a strange connection between us, and now he’s stuck here with me and Reiner in a tiny smithy. With the _thing_ inside me.

Marco stops struggling.

His body shivers once more, bucks up, and then he sobs. I don’t know whether it’s because of the wound or his parents or everything that’s fucking happened altogether. Then, Marco moves. He lies back down on the blanket, pulls it over his legs by the edges and up to his chin until he’s hiding in it like a lost child. He’s curled in a fetal position, a few feet away from me, wings extended behind him. He’s staring at me.

“Please,” I say once more, desperate, and then, “Why are you afraid of me?”

Boom. The words drop down like a guillotine. The question is out. And I just need the truth.

The galaxies on his wings shimmer like quiet fire. Sometimes, beautiful things have to be broken, and I wish it wasn’t that way.

“I’m sorry. About that,” Marco whispers and nods towards my arm, avoiding the initial question. I just push the sleeve back up and shrug. “Things happen.” People die, the world goes up in bright flames, and your life tumbles down an abyss. It all just happens. Fate is an asshole.

Marco obviously doesn’t plan to give me an answer. Instead, he pushes one of my wounds, and I close my eyes when he speaks. Big fucking mistake.

“Is it from a fight? Did you – did someone try to kill you?” Marco sounds worried, shimmies closer with insecure motions, wings flapping behind him.

Don’t. _Don’t_ fucking ask me that.

The fire, the screams. My mother –

“’s not important,” I snap at him and Marco winces, shit, I didn’t want this. “Sorry.”

“No, I shouldn’t have – sorry,” he interrupts me, waving his hands and mumbling “Sorry, sorry for asking.” At least he doesn’t look at me like a scared puppy again. More like… I can’t describe it. His hands twitch a bit, fingers wringing as if he’s trying to find words. He’s biting his lips, just like I do it all the time.

He looks me over as if he’s searching for something in my face, a trace of a memory I’ve forgotten long ago.

Marco is more human than I’ll ever be. A star with wings, more emotional and open than I ever was.

I feel like the worst person in the world when I see him shift and seek for words. Shit. I just don’t want to tell this story. He’ll hate me even more. I take a deep breath and run both hands down my face. Focus, you have to get him to trust you.

It’s just to treat his wound. It’s not like we’ll become friends or anything.

“Okay listen,” I say after thinking for a few feverish seconds, words stumbling out of me, “I’ll do this quick, promise. It won’t hurt for long. Just gonna drip some alcohol over it, get that shit out and you can go back to sleep. A’ight? Trust me. If you don’t want to… I won’t ask again.”

I’m looking down on my hands, my palms sweaty and still dirty with earth. I rub them together as I run out of words, out of _anything_ I could tell him. The room feels too tight, walls coming down, too hot, and I wish the fire was out and gone so Marco couldn’t see my helplessness in the flames. I can’t even cheer someone up or be friendly enough to not make him run away. He has to stay. For his wing, to get better – and fuck, he needs to stay for _me_.

“You have no idea, do you?”

Huh. What?

“Oh,” he says, and then, again, “Oh. That explains a lot.”

I raise a brow and look at Marco, who’s smiling, sadness in the bright glow of his eyes. The gold inside swirls. The quiet tune swaying within his voice is weird and agitating. My heart starts racing.

“What do you mean?” This is getting annoying. I want him to decide, to tell me ‘fuck off’ or ‘help me’. Ultimately, I grab the small bottle of alcohol and twist the cork off. The stench is tangy and harsh, wafting through the air. “Is that a yes? We ain’t got all night. I need you to-”

“You… you really don’t know. Heavens, oh gosh.” Marco clasps a hand over his mouth, leaning in, his eyes ripped wide open. The tips of his wings flutter and twitch, curling into the blanket that slips off his waist, pooling over his dark legs. I swallow around the lump that starts to swell in my throat. The air vibrates between us, and Marco licks his lips, tongue flashing in pink for a second.

Something is wrong. My chest aches, tightens, clenching around nothing but empty space between bones. Marco is calm now, unmoving. We breathe together for a few moments. The world – stops.

My heart thrums, blood rushes in my ears and Marco touches my forehead with his thumb. But he isn’t swearing an oath this time, and his face is so pitiful that I choke on the air wheezing in my lungs.

“I’m not afraid of you because you called me a monster.”

Yeah, poke the wound, fucking thank you. I grimace and launch to snarl back, but Marco’s fingers lace up with mine and fuck, a shudder sparks in the nape of my neck and spreads over my skin like wildfire.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I hear myself whisper, the pulsing of my blood too loud as it echoes in my ears, roaring and bellowing. Marco’s hands wrap around mine, and fuck, they’re large and warm and it feels like flying. For a precious, incredible moment, I’m free.

Marco hauls me back to reality with words that hit like a stone to my skull.

“Nobody’s told you that you aren’t human, right?”

His fingertips dance across my palms, and he’s sending shivers with something that can only be magic.

I can’t breathe.

This… no. This isn’t true. My body tightens, strains, and I’m falling when Marco shakes his head and lets go of me, all the wonderful feelings gone and a soft cackling echoing inside my mind.

“God,” Marco whispers in horror, and I stare at him, shivering like crazy, waiting for an explanation.

“How can you know?” I press out and sling both arms around myself, scrabbling away from him backwards until my head hits the work bench with a painful bang. “It’s – of course I’m human! This… y-you know that it’s there? This _thing_ inside my head?” He doesn’t react, and my voice cracks into thousand desperate begs when I yell at him. “Fucking _tell me!_ Why are you afraid of me? I’m not – I can’t really be a monster!”

Marco stays where he is, and now I’m the one looking at him like a scared little child. His stars light up brighter, shine and twinkle in the dim smithy, and all I want is my old life back without starchildren who tell me things I never really wanted to know.

“Not a monster. Not a thing either, I think,” Marco says, words slipping out one at a time. His body is darkness, light, facets of colours swirling into each other and melting as one. He shuffles closer again and turns his back towards me, wings parting in the middle, revealing his wound.

He reaches back for my hand, glancing over his shoulder. I wince when our fingers touch – but there’s no fire along my spine this time, no voice cackling inside my head. Just Marco, black hands guiding me to his wound.

“Why?” I ask, croaking, struggling with staying sane and fucking conscious. “Now I’m suddenly allowed to touch you? Fuck, you can’t just – just throw this at me and then not explain anything – “

“You,” Marco says gently and leans back so that my hand touches his wound, a whimper accompanying his words, “have no idea who you are. There’s magic in you. When we touched – when you touched my wound, I felt it. It radiates like heat, here. Right now. You’re not a monster, Jean. But you’re not human, either.”

I’m not insane. I’m not imagining this voice. It’s not paranoia or some weird curse that’s making animals die and apples foul near me. It’s not bad luck that has a woman bear a dead child and suffocate herself one night later.

It’s all me.

“Magic,” the starchild says as he nudges his back into my hands, and I start unwrapping his wound like someone else is controlling my movements. “There’s magic in you. When you touched me… it felt as if you were on fire. I thought you, well. That you were going to burn me or something.”

“Shut up. Shut up for a second with this crazy shit and just let me help you. Now you know that I won’t burn you into a pile of ashes, right? Because I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.”

He turns his head and smiles, with all that fucking pity around his lips, but I’m too numb to return the gesture. My fingers start to work without thinking; I dip the tissue in alcohol and wipe his wound clean as carefully as possible. Marco’s head falls so all I see is the back of his neck as he moans, body twitching as I get all the disgusting shit out of his injury. It’s silent when I clean, and that’s good. Nothing but the fire and my head thrumming with questions and a wild ferocious fear that I thought I’d buried eight years ago.

It’s all coming back hollering. My fingers slip off his wound because I tremble too much, and I accidentally scratch along his wing.

“Ow!”

“Sorry, my fault. Sorry. Didn’t wanna hurt you.”

“Mhm. ‘s alright.” Marco doesn’t shy away, just ducks a bit and flaps his wings like a bird attempting to fly. He has to sense that I want to get this over with. He lets me do it in peace, thank God.

“It’ll be over in a few.” I can’t reply to his fucking talk about fucking magic and me not being a monster, not a human – not anything but, apparently, dangerous and terrible.

“I’m sorry. I thought – I thought you knew. Thought you were hurting me on purpose, and I… God, you could have been a hunter, too, just disguised as-”

He turns when I’m done with wrapping the bandage around his wing, and I scoot back when he reaches out for me again.

He’s broken me. Once again, I’m in fucking pieces.

“Fuck, don’t do that! Don’t – don’t talk like I’m some bastard who wants to stab you any minute!”

I didn’t intend to scream, it just happens. It’s too much, all too much, my head’s spinning and I feel goddamn sick in my stomach.

Marco just sits there and looks at me with white puppy eyes and his hands slowly drop back down. He opens his mouth to say something, but I don’t let him.

“This – this is enough. I’m done. You can’t just – just ask me to bring you into my workplace and tell Reiner strange things about a goddamn war and now he’s a mess and not telling me anything anymore!” My hands curl into fists and I slam one against the workbench, the wood creaking under the force hitting it. Pain jerks through my knuckles, Marco makes a hoarse, fearful noise, falling onto his back as he shuffles away from me, but I don’t care. “You can’t just come and tell me that it’s far worse. It’s – I thought it was just a fucking loose screw in my brain, y’know? Just being insane. Imagining things. Maybe I’m just fucking bad luck.”

I snort and my hand falls down from where it hit the bench, the skin on my knuckles broken and split open, blood trickling onto my pants. There’s still stains of dirt and wet earth from the forest on them, and it’s ripped at my knees where I fell.

I’m so goddamn tired.

“Jean, don’t – please calm down. Your magic-” Marco has raised his hands and looks me in the eyes, and the gold inside spins in narrow circles as he slowly gets up, not once breaking eye contact. “This is what I mean. You radiate magic, energy, and if you do this, things will be affected by it.” He sucks in a deep breath, and his face glows in the flames’ light dancing over his freckles made from stars. “I’m so sorry for everything. I… I have no right to be here. And I know I can trust you now. Thank you. Thank you for saving me.”

Everything collapses. The fucked-up, ragged life that I built from foul leftovers I ate on the streets to the tiny attics I slept in, the jobs I worked my ass off for and broke my bones – it’s all gone to waste.

Monster. Dangerous.

I don’t realize that my body gives in and I’m falling over. I don’t see that Marco catches me, shouting my name and cupping my face with panic in his soft voice. My eyesight blurs, and the lack of sleep and fear and all that blood I saw those past days crash down on me.

Marco’s face hovers above me, framed by a warm golden glow from the fire. A door creaks somewhere, and a low voice rumbles something.

“What did you do to him? Marco, answer me.”

“Did you know? Reiner, did you know that he’s-”

“Move.”

“You haven’t told him. How long were you going to hide it from him? How long?!”

“I said _move_.”

There’s some shuffling, and Marco whispering something, breath ghosting over my face. Then a rough hand presses against my face and lightly slaps my cheek. I groan, try to fight the darkness clouding my vision. Reiner’s name slips my lips and my hands lunge forward, reach out blindly to grab a familiar smith’s apron.

“’s alright, kid. You need some more rest.” Reiner doesn’t smile when I finally blink at him through my eyelashes. Marco is by his side, eyes wide in worry. He looks over to Reiner and his fingers curl in the blanket underneath me.

“You owe him an explanation. You owe both of us one. Reiner, what’s going on?”

For a long time, there’s nothing. I don’t even make an attempt to get up, my head’s spinning in narrow circles and I feel like I could throw up any minute. This is insane. It has to be one of my nightmares, a goddamn dream.

Please don’t let it be real. Let me be paranoid, insane, let all those people just be superstitious and all those horrible things be coincidence. Let me believe that I’m just a monster that brings bad luck, and not a real one.

I’d take ten times crazy instead of _this_.

“You will rest now. And when you two are feeling better, then we’ll talk.” Reiner points to a bag next to Marco that he must have dropped when he came back.

“There’s food in it. Eat. Both of you. I have to finish something up, and then you can ask whatever you want.”

Marco pipes up again, but one hard glare from Reiner shuts him up and makes him shrink into a feathery ball next to me. And fuck, I can’t be mad at him because it’s not his fault, none of it. My fingers brush his, and his face brightens a bit when he feels my touch. He’s still looking at Reiner, though, and so am I. Marco’s on my side. We both don’t know anything – nothing about a war, what’s happening here, who I really am.

Reiner makes an ocean-deep sigh and huffs. “Fine. Listen to me once, will ya? Gimme two hours. You can wait that long. Marco, I see that Jean cared for ya wing. Good. You need rest, too.”

I’ve never wanted to grab someone by the shoulders and shake him until he replied like I do right now. Marco’s expression is stony, eyes narrowed, and he has to be thinking the same. Our fingers do the brushing-thing again, and it doesn’t feel bad at all. No warm sparks on my spine, but at least there’s another emotion than tears on his star-lit face.

We’re both too weak to fight back.

Reiner leaves without another word. He slams the workshop’s door shut behind him, and his steps are loud and echoing when he stomps upstairs. I remember that he doesn’t sleep. A cold shudder runs down my back.

“…Shit.” I spit the word out like it’s poison. I’m so sick of everything.

“Yeah. I have no idea what’s happening here.” Marco sighs and runs a hand down his face, then worms his arm behind his back to feel the bandage. He smiles. “It’s much tighter than Reiner’s. You’re really good at this. Thanks.”

I shrug and try to prop myself up on my elbows, but the world blurs before my eyes. “Fuck, ugh. Yeah, dealt with a lot of assholes on the streets.”

“Mhm. Sorry.” Marco bites his lips, and then he points next to me where the blanket is spread out. “Can I sit with you? It’s cold on the floor.”

“’course. Just… I don’t want to talk right now.” I shuffle away from him and roll onto my side, hugging my knees until I’m small and curled up.

“Okay. I’ll stay awake, if you want to sleep some more.” He sounds a bit helpless, like a puppy that’s been beaten. But I’m too exhausted to make another attempt at comforting him. It’s two more hours until Reiner returns, and my head is a mess of thoughts racing and clashing like thunder in a storm.

I don’t feel how I fall asleep, don’t feel Marco tucking me in and whispering a word in a language I still don’t understand.

I don’t even sleep.

I only lose myself in a maelstrom of wild cackling and fire licking at my skin, melting it off my bones while the sky comes down on me with a howl of ‘monster, monster’.

The touch of Marco’s fingers on mine drives the nightmares away, eventually, and I drift off into a black void of nothing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ride gets wilder. Some wounds tear open once more. Old memories return.  
> I'm sorry for the delay in updating; I had to face private issues and complications with my writing and Inspiration. I'm back now. There's been so much support from my friends on twitter and tumblr, from your beautiful comments, fanart that blew my mind and everyone who read this fanfiction. Thank you so much, and welcome back.  
> We are only getting started.
> 
> PLEASE leave kudos if you enjoyed. Comments are always appreciated, too <3


	5. Ember

" **Where's the cooling wind**

**Where's the evergreen field**

**Where's my mother's open arms**

**Where's my father lionheart**

**S'like the sun's gone down**

**Sleeps in the hallowed ground now**

**With the autumn's browns leaves**

**With the one who never grieves "**

_-_ _Poets of the Fall: Where Do We Draw the Line_

 

* * *

  
The streets taught me that there’s no such thing as miracles. You don’t get warm words and praise just for surviving – _well done, little boy,_ _you didn’t get killed_. It’s all about biting through, biting hard enough to make others bleed and choke and go down in flames and dust so you can use them as stepping stones, trying to reach for the smallest shred of luck.

It’s a handiwork I’ve perfected. Spilling blood, slashing pretty figurative or literal wounds into people for a mouthful of food, shelter, or just a goddamn piece of clothing that’ll let you survive the winter. It’s not cruel. It’s not sadistic. It’s a sacrifice you gotta make for your own good.

Sometimes, hurting others, taking things away from them, is the only way to protect yourself.

All the fear and blood still sticks to my fingers like filth, my skin drinking it up like water. I lost something on the streets – gentleness, pity, whatever you wanna call it. Over the years, I’ve learned new things - terrible, useful things - and they became the kind of old habits that die hard. Being a monster keeps you alive.

I haven’t killed anyone, I swear. I just… I stopped _saving_ people at some point. Don’t feed other strays, don’t share food. Mind your own business.

You ain’t getting anything back from them, after all. Fucking _nothing_ comes out of charity. I ended up losing more than I invested.

It’s an easy calculation of cost and benefit these days, when you’re spending countless nights freezing without a blanket because that supposedly helpless girl who I shared it with took the first chance to steal it in my sleep. Half my age, double the wits, and leaving me to sleep with the rats in my hair under a carriage.

And God, did I learn from it.

I don’t repeat past mistakes. Fighting someone else’s battles, baring your claws for them – I’ve given up on that shit eight years ago. I drowned my selflessness in sleepless nights and dark alleys. I burned it in the memories of my mother’s screams and the blood dripping down my father’s face, the taste of dirt and death. I watched it being devoured by every new scar on my body, ruby and silver lines a reminder of hatred from people who fear what they don’t understand.

But now there’s Marco, and my meticulous calculations shatter like glass.

Reiner isn’t there when I wake up, the sun blinding me through the smithy’s dirt-crusted windows, gold and ruby-red burning into the floor where a single beam of light catches on the wood.

Marco kneels in front of the almost-burnt-down fireplace, warm sunlight caught in his hair and the blanket still loosely wrapped around his hips. He reminds me of a little soldier, snuggling into his armor as if it’ll protect him from the world, from people with arrows and hatred in their hearts. His wing rests calmly against his back, the bandage still white. The wound had stopped bleeding, thank God. I catch myself as I breathe out slowly, my body relaxing from the quick bolt of panic that had rushed through it.

 _Do I care about him?_ My heart doesn’t have a reply, and my head’s useless as always when it’s about feelings.

Fuck.

I rub my eyes, hands running up and down my face until the blood starts warming up my cold skin. Should’ve slept closer to the fire, but I was just too fucking exhausted. All that shit was too much.

Starchildren. A war coming.

_‘Run’._

What kind of message is that supposed to be? Reiner didn’t tell any of us _anything_ , so I can save squeezing Marco for more information. Speaking of, the new glowing fluffball seems to poke something inside the fireplace, his star-sprinkled back shifting where the blanket has fallen down to his waist.

He seems… alright. And by that, I mean _alive_. Not the good, apple-pie kind of alright.

I watch him for a few peaceful seconds, where there’s nothing but silence and warmth from the cracking fire. It could be good like this, could be fine if he was just a normal guest, but my world’s hanging upside down and I ‘m still waiting for the great explosion.

“…mmmh.”

Marco whispers something I don’t understand, and his body tenses, shoulders hunching down, curling into himself. I lean forward on reflex, hands on the floor to hold my weight as I try to listen, but I can’t quite catch what he’s saying.

Fuck my curiosity. He’s probably talking to himself, thinking he’s got some privacy with me sleeping but no, hello, there’s me eavesdropping like a five year old. And _still_ I don’t pull back but instead move closer, watching out for the blanket to untangle it from my legs without a noise. If he’s going to try anything strange, I want to be prepared.

Maybe I should know by now that Marco isn’t going to hurt me.

He shrinks into himself a bit more, and his wings drop to the floor with a soft rustling as his back muscles relax. It looks like he’s falling, all strength gone, and my heart starts to beat faster. Something’s wrong.

He’s a dark bundle of feathers again. Then his shoulders twitch as a hiccoughing sob shivers through his body. All his walls come crumbling down, a broken nest of darkness left behind where there was a starchild just moments ago – and then, Marco breaks into tears.

I freeze, fucking ashamed of spying on him when he thinks he’s alone, but it’s too late.

A tiny, broken noise comes from where he’s hiding his head between shaking arms, and I’m close enough to hear what he says, but god I wish I wasn’t.

“M-mum…”

My heart thunders against my flesh, a dark, terrifying sound from deep within me.

“Mum… D-dad. Stella. I’m sorry, I’m s-so sorry. I never – I didn’t-”

A thick log in the fireplace breaks in half, sparks flying and ghosting over Marco’s head. They vanish into darkness after their flare, fading like extinguished stars.

I bite down on the knuckles of my fists and press them against my face, nails clawing down like I’m ripping my own skin off. What do I do, _how_ do I – I don’t know what other people feel, I only know my own pain and sorrow but this is someone else, and it’s Marco.

It’s not just anyone. It’s a star, a human being, and my heart thunders like a beating drum pounding a gallop into my rushing blood. The blanket almost tears where I grab it and dig my nails into the fabric, just to rip something apart that isn’t the whole world and everyone who ever hurt me or him.

He’s changed me. It’s only been a few days, and I’m already a different man from who I’ve been before. Because now I do what I never wanted to, not in a thousand years, not after everything that happened.

I care about him.

This is bad. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. I shouldn’t – I’m not a good person. I’m not nice or brave and this is horrible and I want it to _stop_ , don’t cry like that, please _please_ don’t sob like the world is going to swallow you whole and eat you up. I send silent prayers to a god I don’t believe in, hoping that he’s going to give Marco someone who can be there for him.

And then, Marco’s voice rises in a soft hum, and he sings.

The room fills with music that makes my skin crawl and chest go tight, throat raw as I swallow it down like sweet poison. A strange melody wafts through the air, gentle and melancholic, clear as silver and lingering with emotions I have no words for. It doesn’t feel right to name any of them. It’s not my right to hear any of this, that goddamn _mesmerizing_ sadness shaking within his voice.

It belongs to him alone.

I wish I knew if he’d like a hug, or if he wants to talk or just anything. Maybe it’s me who needs a hug, because there’s a faint roar in the back of my head, and I know that it’s a menacing panic attack.

I don’t remember the last time someone kissed my cheek or ran a gentle hand through my hair. I bet Marco still remembers; how his mother’s and sister’s voices sound, his father all proud when he’s praising him for something because Marco is probably a great son.

The galaxy on his back shimmers like gems when he takes a deep breath, and I hold my breath as if he gave a silent command, as if his music sucked all air out of my lungs and left me without motion, sound, thoughts.

Marco doesn’t turn around.

His voice rises, almost inaudible, a faint tingling wavering within the tunes of what sounds like the weirdest, most beautiful language I’ve ever heard. I can’t understand the words.

I don’t need to.

The tears come without a fight, I don’t hold them back.

I sit there, still half-way wrapped in a blanket in Reiner’s smithy, listening to the sorrow of the only one who ever touched a part of my soul I thought I’d forgotten.

And I just – I _can’t._

I can’t listen to it. I want to scream, tell him to stop because there’s nothing I can do. Being helpless, useless, it’s all too familiar and stings like a thorn ripping open my skin. I can’t _bear_ to hear this song that’s so wonderful it’s tearing my ragged soul apart, because it’s Marco mourning something that we both lost and that’ll never return. I want to curl up and turn back time - eight years ago or yesterday, doesn’t matter.

The song fades as Marco’s voice gets quieter, and finally it’s gone and old, familiar silence presses down on us again.

Fuck, I just – _please_. I just want to have a normal life. Take me back, let me go. Give them back to us. Give Marco his family back, give me –

Everything seems like a dream, a wondrous and cruel illusion of beasts and darkness full of stars haunting me, and I’d give anything to go back to my normal life. It might have been miserable – fuck, it _was_ miserable, I admit it – but at least I was _alive,_ sane, and there was food and a job (a future, even) – nothing about monstrous voices screeching inside my head. I want to wake up to a new morning of work in a smithy with Reiner, a smith and nobody else, and I don’t want fucking messages about a war coming.

I press back into the wall and claw both hands down my face, pain tingling in my skin. I hope, I _pray_ that it helps, hope that it clears my head and doesn’t let me go crazy.

But maybe I’m already knee-deep in hell.

I’m the monster.

Because how bad is this thing inside me if even a fucking _magical creature_ is afraid of me? What has to be deep inside me, behind the cage of my flesh and bones, flowing in my veins and in my blood, what can be terrifying enough to scare a living star? I bite my lip and worry it until I taste blood, until there’s steel and dirt on my tongue, circulating my body as if that’s all I’m made of. Fuck, I – I don’t know _anything_ anymore.

Reiner, that idiot I thought I could trust, just left us behind with nothing but a flood of questions and a vague promise (and there’s me using _us_ as if Marco and I belong together, but we don’t, we don’t). He left me with a goddamn – I don’t even know. With _nothing_.

I don’t know who the real monster is anymore.

Marco has stopped singing and is staring into the fire again, not moving a muscle, wings still spread and limp. I let him be, not daring to interrupt his mourning, a potentially sacred ritual of his kind. I need time to think. I ruined too much already.

My hands clench into fists, my knuckles going white as I feel hot red anger rise in my chest. A hollowness spreads inside my mind, trickling down the walls of my sanity, thick whispers rasping over the core of what keeps me alive, my memories, my wishes and dreams that I’m hiding away, and a last hope that one day things’ll be alright.

Gotta forget that one, too. With me around, nothing ever turns out right.

But overthinking doesn’t do the trick either, so I drag myself upright, head spinning for just a second, dizziness clouding my vision. I wait for the blood to rush back to my head as I stretch my arms, throwing a look outside the window to estimate how high the sun’s risen already. It’s morning, and the full sun is just vanishing on the upper edge of the dirty window frame. My stomach sinks deeper.

The new day is here, and Reiner hasn’t returned.

He owes me a fucking explanation, and I get the feeling that I won’t like it. He lied to me, all the time, about _everything_. And it’s not just the fact that he knows about crazy shit like mythological creatures roaming our world. He doesn’t sleep. He takes in strange monsters like old friends – even though Marco doesn’t seem dangerous anymore – and I’ll be damned if he doesn’t know something about that _thing_ in my head.

Something makes me think back to that moment two nights ago, a feeling that I overlooked a detail. A piece of my mental puzzle is missing, and now I gotta jigsaw it together. A faint, soft echo of ‘something is wrong about this’ makes its way into my consciousness, tickling my danger senses till they’re growling. What am I missing? I squeeze my eyes shut and re-track my steps, focusing all my attention on Reiner.

Back in the shed, when I smuggled Marco in… Reiner had touched me, warm hands pressed to my skin, and that _thing_ was gone in seconds. Coincidence? Yeah, right. As if anything that happens to me isn’t ever strange, weird, or fucking dangerous.

I furrow my brows and slump back to the floor, trying to remember more closely what happened when I was about to lose my mind. That beast, that _thing_ was talking to me, and it tried to take my mind, my body – and I was giving up, screaming and fighting against the darkness pulling at my soul –

My body shivers, begging me to stop pushing, but I force the memory to come back because there’s something I’m missing. It just doesn’t add up. Why, _why_ did it leave me alone when I was about to break, when I was about to go down screaming –

No. It –

That wasn’t me. I wasn’t the one who made it go away.

Oh God.

It was Reiner, all along. He – it was _him_ who expelled that _thing_.

_Reiner did it._

My chest roars from the thrumming beat of my blood. I squeeze my eyes shut and press both fists against my face, my head starting to spin again. The soft hairs on my neck stand on end, sweat dewing on forehead. Shit. Shit.

I remember now, I fucking _remember_ how he –

The world blurs before my eyes, darkness swirling into my vision like an uprising storm, and I recognize the signs. A soft cackling echoes in my head, sharp claws dancing over the walls of my mind as they try to get in, a cold shudder down my spine. It’s just a flashback to two nights ago but God, it’s terrifying enough to remember how everything went down, my body possessed by something –

Something that isn’t me, that’s wrong and dark and so utterly blood-curdling that I’ll never forget it in my whole life.

And then, Reiner’s hand on my shoulder. My mind snapping back, pulled by an overwhelming strength, heat flooding my body and pulsing in violent shocks through my veins.

It was all him.

The memory is over, and I’m panting hard, sweat dripping down my forehead and running over my bruised cheek. The cut I got myself in the forest still hurts, my sweat’s salt burning in it like a bitch. I try to catch my breath, pressing a fist to my chest and listening to the pounding of my heart, heat spreading into my fingertips and toes. It’s alright. Just a memory. The thing isn’t here. But Reiner might be something far more dangerous than the thing, more dangerous than Marco, who I still feared until this morning and who turned out to be mostly harmless.

Who the hell is the man I’ve been working for? Who can keep a thing under control that has enough power to light buildings up in flames and bring me to my knees?

“Good morning.”

Marco faces me, eyes bright as the moon, when I look up at the sound of his voice. There’s nothing happy about the tiny fake smile plastered onto his face, and I can see his fingers clenching into the blanket that he’s pulling up against his chest and around his waist.

“Morning.” I don’t know what else to say. Marco doesn’t seem to mind, he just makes an inviting gesture with his hand, turning back to the fire while waving me closer.

“Wanna come over here? You must be cold. You were shivering in your sleep.”

I wonder if he’s been watching me, but I can’t really blame him. With Reiner gone, there’s not much to do here. And the fact that he only watched me and didn’t cut my throat is calming enough for a freaky situation like this.

“Move over, then,” I murmur, scrambling over to him across the carpet of blankets we left behind on the smithy’s floor. Marco’s smile gets a tiny bit happier, and he shimmies to the edge of the folded blanket he’s sitting on, making room for me.

“It’s so warm here. The fireplace is amazing. We didn’t have such a big one.” I nod because I don’t know what to say, and we fall silent for a moment.

Then, Marco shuffles closer and his wings touch my neck. They’re soft and smooth, and I remember when I was twelve and found a dead bird in an alley, a tiny sparrow with feathers full of blood. I remember how Marco whimpered under my touch yesterday, and I swallow around the thick lump that builds up in my throat. He looked at me like I was a wild beast.

I hear Marco take a deep breath, and he wraps himself into the wing that’s not touching me before he speaks. There’s a faint undertone in his voice, insecure and shy, and I wish I could take it away from him, those bad feelings and insecurities.

“I’m sorry for yesterday. For… being so afraid of you. I don’t know how to explain it, your magic was just-”

“’s alright,” I interrupt him, and he flinches, head twitching to hide inside his wings. Just like a baby bird, damn. Whatever I do is wrong. I just want to get this topic over with. “What I mean – I mean, it’s okay. You thought I wanted to hurt you. I thought you were about to eat me or something, so we’re kind of even.” I run a hand through my hair and laugh. It comes out stiff and cracked. “We were both just careful, I guess. But, just so you know, I don’t wanna hurt you. Wouldn’t help you with your wound then, right?”

Marco peeks out from behind black feathers and a row of stars around his right eye blinks. “Yeah,” he says after a moment and his eyes crinkle from a smile that’s hidden behind his wings. “I... okay. I don’t want to hurt you, either. Thanks for still helping me, even though you thought I wanted to eat you. Which I wouldn’t do, of course.”

“Not so much for human flesh?” I ask, managing to pull my lips back into a grin. Marco actually smirks back for a flash second, and his stars break into a symphony of colours glowing on his chest.

“Nah. I’m more of the sweet tooth. Give me some honey and fruit and I’m the happiest starchild in the world.”

He laughs, actually, honestly _laughs_ , and there’s a gentle tingling within his voice. I hate that my heart starts beating faster and that I kind of want to make him laugh more, want to see his smile go wider and his stars twinkle as beautiful as before.

Get your shit together, Kirschstein. No time for flirting with a supernatural glowball. Not even if he’s got a sweet tooth and so goddamn precious that I feel bad for ever calling him monster.

“Alright.” I nudge my shoulder against Marco’s playfully, still grinning. “Then I’ll make sure to get you something when I go to the market next time. Gotta nurse you back to health if you wanna go home soon.”

Marco’s smile dies. Oh fuck.

There’s no home to return to. My idiot brain is too fucking slow to process this information in time.

“Shit, I’m sorry, fuck. I’m sorry, Marco.”

It’s the first time that I say his name.

“I can’t go home.” His eyes flutter shut over tears running down his cheeks again, and he buries his face in his arms, knees close to his chest. “I… there’s nothing – nothing.”

I can’t take it. I can’t see him like this.

I reach out for his shoulder, carefully, not knowing if this is what people want when they’re feeling sad. It’s a risk I’m willing to take for the first time in years. Anything could go wrong, I could burn myself on his stars or he could attack me.

No. He wouldn’t hurt me, not this gentle, pure soul of a broken boy.

And for some reason, a miracle occurs.

Marco lets me touch him.

He doesn’t move away. My fingers wrap around his dark skin and squeeze it softly, and now I know that he’s the tiniest bit warmer where his stars glow in the night sky of his body. I’ll never forget this, the feeling of his stars pulsing and searing under my fingers like tiny heart beats of living, breathing universes, full of life and hope.

Marco closes his eyes and turns his head away, his arms crossed and propped up on his knees. But he leans into my hand. He doesn’t pull away from me. I’m doing something right.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper again.

All I get back is a curt nod and Marco’s shoulder pressing into my hand more, and that’s a command even I understand. So I simply shut up and stay right where I am. It’s silent and warm, the fire crackling, and Marco’s skin rising and sinking with each of his breaths, right under my hand. I let him have the silence he needs and take my time to glance at him from the side.

He looks like he hasn’t slept a single minute. It’s weird how I can already tell his mood by the dimness of the miniature galaxies swirling on his cheeks. Freckles, I think, and they’re the weirdest and kinda cutest freckles I’ve ever seen.

Jean, no. Worst situation in the history of embarrassing yourself to think about a mythological creature’s cute facial features. Even though they’re _really_ bright and pretty.

Apropos non-human creatures.

“Hey, Marco.” I try to be sensitive for once and rub my hand over his shoulder a bit, careful not to touch his injured wing. Marco sniffs and looks up from the nest of his arms he was buried in.

“Yeah?” Looks like he’s stopped crying. Good. I clear my throat and think about taking my hand away, but his stars get warmer under my touch and it’s kinda nice. And maybe it helps him. Maybe I want it to help.

But there’s something more important.

“What do you know about Reiner? Is he an old friend or something?” I don’t really succeed in sounding casual; there’s heaviness on my words, like lead pulling them down towards the ground and into the earth.

Marco furrows his brows at me and shuffles around a bit, turning to face me. My hand slips off his shoulder and onto his arm.

“I haven’t met him before yesterday, if that’s what you mean. He is – he was a friend of my parents.” He looks down to where our feet are tangled in blankets and where my hand is hot and strange on his skin. I can’t take the thoughtful expression in his eyes and rip my hand away, clutching it together with the other in my lap. Marco searches for my eyes and tilts his head. “But that’s not what you’re asking me, right?”

“No.” My voice is hoarse, breathless. He nods slowly and sighs.

“Okay, I’ll tell you all I know about what’s going on here. Your magic, Reiner, whatever you wanna hear.” He pauses for a second, and his eyes glow at me, warmth lingering in shimmering gold and silver coils. “Would you mind if we ate something while we talked? I’m literally starving.”

“Good idea. Wait a sec.”

I’m up on my feet before he finishes his sentence and cross the room in big strides. Reiner’s left us a whole bag of food, which I take from the floor before flopping back down by Marco’s side. He’s untangled the blankets a bit and draped one over his lap, cross-legged and waiting for me with a tiny smile.

“Alright, let’s see what we got here. I guess he got something you should be able to eat, after all he seems to know a lot about your – your kind, uhh, race.” I rub my neck and avoid his eyes. Marco giggles. His voice does the little cute tingling, and heat rises in my cheeks.

Damn, I’m so fucking awkward. You could fuel five teenage girls with my awkwardness and still have enough leftovers to embarrass myself in front of the only person besides Reiner who’s ever been nice to me. Marco stops laughing and brushes a strand of dark hair out of his face.

“I pretty much eat anything that isn’t fish or meat,” he says with a shrug. “Just hand me some bread or cheese. I’ll leave any meat to you.”

I quirk a brow and him and take a quick glance into the bag. Oh wow. “How’d you know what’s in here? Did you take a peek earlier?”

Marco smiles and shakes his head, pointing a finger to the tip of his nose. “Good sense of smell. Also, dried meat stinks, and the bread is still fresh.”

“Mhm, okay. So it ain’t another special starchild power.” There’s an especially bright star under his fingertip - and then I quickly think of something else because it’s kind of creepy that I’m memorizing his skin pattern.

Marco laughs again, soft tingling and warmth flooding my cheeks, and shakes his head. “No, it’s all normal. We’re actually not that different, you and I.”

“I heavily doubt that,” I murmur and dig into the bag, folding it down so the bottom becomes visible.

Marco leans over to peek inside as well and swoops for one of the red apples. “Can I have this?” he asks, smiling like I just gave him a pot of gold, his eyes all bright and begging me to say yes. How could I ever refuse that?

“Sure,” I say. He takes the apple and bites into it, juice dripping down his chin before he wipes it off with the back of his hand. He devours the fruit with an impressive speed. If he was a carnivore, I’d be terrified. “Uh, have a nice meal, then.” I rub my neck and try to smile back at him, happy that he seems content. My heart is pounding again, goddamn. Stupid thing. He nods and waves his hand, an invitation to join in.

I catch myself hesitating. I’m not used to eating around people; there’s always jealousy about food on the streets. I force myself to take a deep breath. Everything’s fine. Marco’s teeth crunching into the apple are a constant background noise as I collect myself, and it helps me calm down. I flatten the bag a bit, pushing the walls down around its insides and take a few strips of dried meat for myself. To an ordinary person, it wouldn’t seem like much – a skin full of water, apples, meat, and a loaf of bread with a tiny block of cheese on the side. But food is fucking expensive, and this is the best I’ve gotten in years.

This is heaven.

I feel my mouth watering. Cheese, _real_ cheese, and freshly baked bread. I’m used to stealing this shit still, and it’s tempting to wolf it all down in a blink. I lick my lips and look down on the beef in my hands – I don’t think I’ve eaten meat in eight years. Hunger is what keeps us alive, attention focused, claws sharp and ready. I’m always hungry, for food, for shelter, for a little bit of peace. Marco is chewing away and probably won’t tell me anything till he’s done, so I dig into my food as well.

We eat in silence. The fire stops crackling at some point, all the wood burnt down to a pile of black ash and dust. The sun’s high enough to throw bright speckles of light through the smithy’s window, Marco’s skin catching the glow like a magnet.

I swallow the last piece of my third meat strip and lick my lips, watching him with blatant curiosity. He’s more brilliant in daylight, light floating around him like a rare gem. He doesn’t fit into the picture of Reiner’s dark smithy, full of ash and dirt, splinters of metal everywhere.

The bizarre scene makes me look down on myself as I reach for the bread. Ragged clothes, soiled shirt, and pants with holes in the knees. My shoes are barely holding together. Once a street child, always a street child.

The past ain’t leaving you alone. Never.

I force my mind away from the darkness of past memories and rip the bread in half, handing Marco the other part. He takes it with a small nod, both black hands wrapping tight around it.

“Thanks, Jean.” My name sounds foreign on his tongue, and I watch his lips wrap around it like it’s a new spice he’s never tasted. I notice two stars gleaming on the tips of his thumbs, and a row of tiny galaxies scattered around his wrists.

 _Beautiful_ , my head says.

 _Watch out_ , my heart whispers and wraps itself deeper in the cage of flesh and bones I built for it. Safe, sound, untouchable.

“Alright then. Ask me what you want.”

“Huh?” I look up from my untouched bread. The starchild is looking at me, head tilted, but I only duck my head and grin. “Sorry, didn’t listen. What’d you say?”

Marco mumbles something that sounds like “aww” and chuckles. “I said, ask me what you want. It’s okay, you’ve got a lot of questions, I know. I’ll try to answer them.”

I don’t need to think twice. My mouth opens, and a flood of questions comes pouring out, all those strange things I’ve been storing inside my chest for the past days until it was full and aching with fear, singing with a new curiosity.

“What’s wrong with me?” My fingers clench around the leftover bread, pressing into the crust. “How do you know there’s magic in me? What – are all those fairy tales real? All those monsters…”

I swallow, looking up at Marco. He isn’t smiling anymore, face smooth and emotionless as a starless night sky. “Go on,” he says calmly. “Ask.”

My blood rushes, pumps, courses in my veins like it’s venom, poisoning me from deep inside. The walls lean in on me, my fingers piercing the bread till it crumbles. I take a deep breath. Marco waits, unmoving, wordless.

One last question. My heart falls into breathless silence, stops beating for a few painful seconds.

“Are the monsters from those stories real?”

 _‘And am I one of them?_ ’ is what I’m screaming inside, the question echoing inside the marrow of my bones, eating me up down to the core. Because if I am – if I’m really one of those beasts –

How can I go on if I really was like that? What if Marco was afraid of me with good fucking reason?

I’m sweating. Salt dries on my lips, I lick it away, not hungry anymore. I push the bread into Marco’s hands and flinch when he extends his fingers to trace them along my wrist. Heat sparks where his skin touches mine. I shake my head, panicking, I can’t scare him again. Please, stop, don’t do this.

“You’re not like them.” Marco’s stars are the only light, all I see. His eyes vanish behind dark lids for a second, and my chest bursts when he opens them up again. His fingers rest on my wrist.

“If you were truly bad, you’d have killed me.” His voice trembles, nails tracing invisible patterns on my skin. “Do you feel this? That warmth?”

I can only nod. My throat is tight, all breath gone, I’m drowning. Please, tell me I’m okay. Tell me the truth.

Marco tilts his head again, looking like a curious young bird. He lets me go, and the heat vanishes. I pull my hand against my chest and hold it like a treasure, like he’s burnt his mark into it. But when I glance down at it, scared – there’s nothing. No scar. It didn’t even hurt.

“What did you do?” I croak and shuffle closer to him, eyes wide from fear and the greed of wanting to know more. It reminds me of the way that the ocean is pulled and pushed around by the moon; I once stole a book about it, with beautiful pictures and swirling letters I couldn’t understand. Marco’s made of stars, but he’s more powerful than any planet. Marco takes another apple and rolls it in his hands before taking a big bite. “I let my magic touch your body’s energy,” he explains like it’s the most natural thing in the world, smiling around a mouthful of fruit.

“Of course, pardon me. I guess I skipped the magical lessons in school.” Let’s see if starchild-fluffball knows what sarcasm is.

He laughs and wiggles a bit forward, close enough for me to see the golden and silver swirls in his eyes. “Guess I can’t expect you to learn something your entire race is afraid of in school. Okay, then.” His face goes from joking to serious in a matter of seconds, and I feel nervousness creep up my spine and coil around my stomach, twisting and turning till there’s a mess inside me.

Marco takes a deep breath. “Let’s answer that last one first. Your energy – which is equal to your magic – feels dark. Not entirely bad.”

I wait, hoping for the best, my thrumming heart fearing the worst. Marco’s face doesn’t change. His hand searches for mine again, the other holding the apple. There’s still slick sweetness shining on his lips. I choke on my words, thick and oozing in my throat. “Not a monster?”

“No.” His smile returns, soft and forgiving. “Magic can be dark, and it can be uncontrollable. Yours is both. None of that makes you a monster or evil.”

I should be relieved. I should believe him, yelling my happiness out into the world, fucking celebrating that it’s not me. It’s my magic. But that’s a part of me, and fuck, there we go again, because it’s still my fault and I’m to blame for all the pain and chaos –

“Jean. Calm down. You’re… you’re hurting me.”

I rip my hand apart from Marco, whose face turned into a grimace of an insecure smile as he tried to pull away from me. I didn’t even realize that I’d gripped his wrist. My fingers are hot, a burning ache flickering inside them. Marco doesn’t jump up and run when I let him go, though. I want to flee. I want to get out of here and beat myself into pieces, flesh and bones and blood splattering everywhere until I’m nothing but human anymore.

“I’m s-sorry.” My voice cracks, edges splintering, then it breaks. Marco is still there, wings rustling, so close to me that I’m afraid to destroy him any second. There have been people who were damaged for hurting me less than Marco.

“Don’t say that. You didn’t know.” His fingers trace back to mine, and then he raises his hand, pressed against mine as if we’re measuring them, comparing the lines that life left bored deep under our skins. Marco is still there. I don’t know if it’s a sob or a broken cry of wrath coming from my mouth.

“I never wanted to hurt anyone.”

“I know.” His eyes are lights in the darkness, hand on mine a steady anchor in a storm. “It’s okay. Maybe we should talk about something else. But it’s okay.” He seems helpless, so lost with the way I’m acting. And damn, now I finally see it.

He’s drowning, just like me. He’s sinking down in a new world full of humans, of people who don’t understand, who’d kill him and tear that fucking gorgeous skin off his bones. He doesn’t know how to help me because he can’t help himself. We’re both too different, and that thought makes me push my hand against his, palm touching palm. Understanding.

“It’s okay,” Marco whispers once more.

“Thank you,” is all that I’m able to give back, voice cracking like stone worn out from wind and weather.

He squeezes my hand for a second, and it’s enough for me to collect myself. The most pressing question is answered. I need to know more about myself, but not now.

“I – so there’s magic.” Enough. No tears anymore. I swallow them, force them down my windpipe and into the sour bile of my stomach.

Marco nods, fingers tickling against mine as he raises our hands higher. They press together, and mine warms up slowly against his star-sprinkled skin of gold and silver. “Yes. Everything contains magic – it’s the force that keeps us alive. It’s what you call life or breath, or the energy flowing in your veins.”

“Like blood?”

He shakes his head and nudges his thumb against mine, rubbing a bit until the warmth turns into heat. I flinch back, our hands almost pulling apart. Marco doesn’t give up and comes after me, fingers searching for mine, dancing through the dimness of the smithy and digging into the blankets.

“It’s okay. It won’t hurt again. I’m keeping my magic for myself,” he promises, his words tingling in excitement and a clumsy try to calm me. I oblige, hesitating for a moment before I give in and let my hand touch his once more. Marco breathes out.

“Good, see? ‘s fine. And no, magic isn’t blood. It flows through our bodies like blood, but you can’t just cut someone open and bleed their magic out.”

“That’s kinda calming, I guess.” I pull a grimace and look down onto our hands. His stars are bright, gleaming in a steady rhythm. They barely flicker now. Maybe it’s a sign of his mood? I decide to watch them a bit. “So when you die, it isn’t because your magic spills out, but because-”

“If you’re stabbed, it’s your body dying. The soul is different.”

“Is it immortal?”

“That’s something nobody really knows.”

Marco wipes his apple juice-soaked hand on his blanket and raises his other hand as well. This time, I put mine against it without hesitation. The warmth comes in a gentle pulse, tickling down my wrist and melting into my own body heat. It’s… not bad. I take a deep, long breath and exhale against our joined fingers. Marco is darkness against my pale skin, nightsky over the ragged translucent paper that’s pulled taut over my bony insides.

“Tell me everything.”

He smiles. A quick pulse of heat tingles in my fingertips.

“Thought you’d never ask.”

Marco goes on telling me about magic. I forget how much time passes as he spreads out legends and mysteries I’ve never heard of before. Magic is great and unbelievable, and he tells me the most important things in short:

That it’s inside everyone, every living and sometimes even inanimate thing, but humans have so little that it does nothing but keep them alive. That magic is pure energy without form or mass, that not even time can influence it. I listen with eyes wide and fingers pushing against Marco’s. The steady rustling of his wings engulfs us into a bubble of warmth and stories as his lips move around words and carry me into another universe.

I can’t say much except for the occasional “and then?” or “but-”, effectively interrupting him with my urging curiosity, but Marco has the patience of a saint. His fingers start to feel natural against mine, as if we’ve always belonged together like this. Of course that’s utter bullshit, he’s another race or something. But I won’t deny that it feels damn good to be touched, to feel skin against my own with a wild heat pulsing underneath. The flow of his words comes to a halt when his story meet the topic of beasts and monsters.

“I don’t know if we should talk about this now,” he says, hesitating. His fingertips tremble against mine, the heat abating from them like an extinguished flame. Our hands sink down together until they part, and I resist the urge to press them against my face and feel his warmth all over it.

“I want to hear it. That – that all this is real. That I’m not dreaming.” I pinch my arm to show what I mean, trying to squeeze some more information out of him. But Marco shakes his head, reluctant and a bit nervous.

“I don’t think I should tell you about this. You were so upset earlier-”

“It’s fine. I need to know, right?” I rub a hand along my neck, feeling the sweat that’s running down my spine. It’s definitely not the burnt-down fire that’s heating up my skin. “Please. Just tell me if unicorns and fairies and all those things from myths and fables are real.”

There’s a flare of light in Marco’s eyes, and a smile twitches around his mouth. He leans forward, his fingers grazing my hand once more. I follow his movement, a little breathless as our fingertips almost touch once more. He’s close again, and I can count the white galaxies of freckles on his cheekbones.

“What do you think the stories come from?”

I suck in a gulp of air, more than my lungs can handle. My chest roars, and a mad, wild grin blooms on my lips.

Marco whispers. Barely there, almost inaudible. I listen with every fibre of my being. “There’s a truth in every story, y’know. Take unicorns, for example.” My shoulders drop a little. Unicorns? Seriously?

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but those are, like, the most boring mythological creatures you could’ve brought up.” My lips curl into a smirk, and Marco returns it with a tilt of his head, tongue clicking.

“Nah, they aren’t. Not all of them are white and sparkly with just one horn.”

“…Are we talking evil duo-horns?”

Marco grins. “Totally. And there’s crazy stuff out there that even I haven’t seen yet.”

My brows furrow along with my mouth dropping open. “That’s fucking amazing.”

This just got a hundred times more interesting, but I can’t focus on that. It’s not logical. I don’t know why anyone would hurt Marco. Hearing about those beasts has me believing that this starchild is the most peaceful supernatural being I could have met. I can’t wrap my head around it. Hunters, unicorns, beasts. Arrows in a quiet black wing.

Magic.

The energy in me, the power destroying things and bringing bad luck – that’s me, but it isn’t. It’s a part I need to control. It’s mine, and I belong to the magic. We’re… one.

Marco lets me dive into my thoughts without interrupting me. I hear his teeth scrape over the apple’s skin, breaking through it to take another bite. This is just so fucking much to take into, and my mind feels like exploding any moment.

My heart pounds, hammering inside my chest. The world is blurring around the edges. Everything is new and full of colours, but there’s an abyss gaping beneath me and if I take another step into the wrong direction –

“Are you alright?” There it is. Marco looks worried, his fingers finding mine once more. This time, it’s pure lightning tingling in our touch, a thunderstorm of feelings rushing and screeching through my veins.

“I’m fine, I think. Yeah. It’s okay.” I crack a smile just for him, rare as finding shelter from a downpour on the streets. “Thanks. And… I’m sorry. Y’know.”

I don’t need to explain. Marco’s darkening eyes tell me enough. His shoulders slump forward. We’re cracking around the edges. Our cores are on fire, ashes falling off and embers vanishing in the wind.

“Maybe.” His voice is a bare wisp of air. “Maybe they’re still alive. Out there, somewhere. I mean, they – they might have escaped.”

Oh God. Please, no. The hope in his quivering, tiny little words is churning my stomach into an ugly, disgusting mess.

His stars go dark, fading under my fingers. I don’t know what to tell him, how to make it better. What eases the pain of a broken heart? What can you do to stitch a wound that’s so deep and raw, bones gaping out, and blood blood blood.

“Marco, I-” Anything I could say isn’t enough, so I fail to say anything at all but his name. “What do you need, I want to – let me help-”

A faint cackling claws its way up into my mind, an uproar of violence and – the _thing_ , it’s coming –

“Looks like sleeping beauty woke up. Mornin’, princess.”

Reiner’s familiar bass voice booms through the smithy. I whirl around and jump to my feet, and I’m so goddamn ready to tackle him down and demand the fucking information I need.

Marco rustles behind me, a wing gently brushing my arm. “Reiner,” he says, colder than I thought he could sound. “We need to know what’s going on. I need to know what this war is that Mum was talking about. And-” He takes a deep breath and steps to stand by my side, even with his wing probably hurting like fucking hell. Reiner watches us both, a bag full of metal bars in his giant hands. His eyes bore into Marco’s, and the starchild shifts under his gaze. “You can’t keep this from us,” Marco finishes. He’s too damn polite.

I won’t wait any longer. I’m sick of being the dumb little boy who’s too young for shit, who’s excluded from everything happening behind the walls of Shiganshina. Anger curls my hands into fists, hot shivers coiling around my spine.

“Reiner, fuckin’ answer us already. You got a damn lot to explain. Why did you stop the thing from making me go crazy? What-”

 _Three_. The countdown to insanity. Reiner’s lips are a thin line, his muscles tense and animalistic under the tightness of his shirt. It’s the first time I’ve looked at his naked arms and wondered why there’s no scars, no marks from ruby embers on his skin.

 _Two._ “Please, Reiner,” Marco whispers, like a prayer.

 _One._ “Who are you?” Is all I press out between gritted teeth. My arms fly up to stretch out in front of Marco, protecting him from anything that could possibly happen.

Zero.

For a long, breathless moment, nothing happens.

Then, Reiner smirks. He goddamn _smirks_ like it’s all a joke, his mouth a loud laugh of white teeth, a sizzling coming from somewhere. _But the fire’s long dead_ , my brain pipes up.

Reiner moves. Without a word, just a chuckle, he passes by us and flops down on our heap of blankets. The bag rustles when Reiner digs out the rest of the meat and rips two strips in half at once, chewing a few times before swallowing with a heavy gulp.

“I’m Reiner.” His voice has calmed to normal volume, and I swear to any fucking God, I’ll rip his throat out if he keeps saying shit like that.

Marco moves closer to me, wings dropped like a sad puppy, all confused and that’s definitely fear lingering in his motions. “We know that much, okay,” he says and his fingers brush mine. I resist the urge to lace them up. “But what’s the reason for all of this? And… didn’t you know about Jean? His magic? If you’ve met my parents and know the least bit about magic-”

Reiner interrupts him with a sharp wave of his hand. “You two, sit down. I’ll tell you all you need to know for now. Nothin’ ‘bout Jean’s magic, though. ‘s a lil’ too early for that.”

“Fuck, I’m so done.” I slump down beside him and grab his arm, pulling him closer with as much strength as I got in my scrawny-ass muscles. Reiner doesn’t seem impressed. He blinks at me with his usual calm, windless eyes. “Give me one reason why I should trust you after all this shit. You _knew_ , goddammit. You knew that I’m a freak.”

My nails leave marks on his arms as I pull back, throwing him away from me. Marco stares at both of us, helpless, wings fluttering, a feather falling loose.

Reiner reaches out and catches it mid-air. It’s like he didn’t even hear what I said. His fingers are too thick for the thin feather, and it almost vanishes inside them. He holds it out in front of my face.

“If you two don’ listen to every single thing I say, if you don’ follow my rules – then this’ll be the only thing left of Marco soon. And of you, boy.” A spark flares in his eyes, and now I lean away from him, hear Marco gasp for air by my side. He’s shivering, wings tapping against my shoulder in a steady, panicking rhythm.

Reiner’s voice is liquid darkness. “Ye, there’s a war comin’, and it ain’t carin’ about you or me or anyone bein’ ready. I ain’t what you thought I was, but it don’ matter. We gotta get you two ready. You’ll be fightin’ for much more than your lives.”

Marco’s fingers steal into mine and squeeze until it hurts. His shivers trickle up my skin, over my spine, to my heart. My mouth has gone dry. Reiner devours the other meat strips in one bite and swallows without chewing.

A bang echoes through the smithy as the fireplace behind us goes up in flames. Sparks fly all around us, the air flittering gold and fire. I press against Marco, hands clasped, his breath close to my face as one of his wings wraps around us – the good one, shielding us from whatever is going on.

“Reiner,” Marco whispers, tiny and broken like something left by the world and torn apart into pieces.

There’s no immediate reply. Reiner sits and stares at both of us, sparks extinguishing in the air between us. The smithy grows hotter by the second, a heat I didn’t think possible. It’s not the dry, raw heat of swords being forged and armor for kings being hammered into one single piece with a hammer’s power. If anything, it feels like magic susurrating in the flying sparks of fire.

“I never gave you any reason not to trust me.” Reiner’s hand falls on top of my shoulder, and the upcoming wrath in my head vanishes into nothing but dust and emptiness. I stare at him, stare and try to understand, to get my head around what he is and what he just did and how all of this shouldn’t be happening.

Reiner slides his hand on top of my head. It’s heavy and calloused, the price of decades of hard craftsmanship. But there’s something else lingering in his touches. Marco’s fingers dig into my palm, and he whispers, “What are we fighting for? What – how can we trust you?”

Knowing that Marco doesn’t feel sure around him is either good or goddamn horrible. Because if even he’s not sure about Reiner, then there’s something wrong with him, so much that it terrifies the living shit out of me.

The hand slides off my hair. Reiner grabs both me and Marco around the waist, hauling us closer. My mouth opens into a silent cry of surprise while Marco gives nothing but a helpless, desperate tingling that sounds like someone’s suffocating him.

“Listen, and listen well. I ain’t sayin’ it twice. You got the choice to be with me and live, or you can play the game of goin’ on ya own.” Reiner reeks of metal, sweat, and ash, and I feel Marco trying to pull away from him just like I do. Basic instinct – fire is danger. Don’t get too close to the flame. Reiner’s voice is too strong, too worried, dripping of something that comes close to desperation.

And I really don’t know what a man like him might fear.

“I – why didn’t you ever say anything? Fuck, what’s happening here?” I slip out of his grip, Marco following, rubbing his shoulder where Reiner touched him. His face is sunk deep into confusion, lips parted and brows furrowed. Then something lights up inside his eyes.

“Oh,” he says, quietly. “Oh.”

Reiner ignores him and grabs my shirt, pulling me up to my feet. “Jean, believe me, I would’ve told ya ev’rything if I could’ve. But there’s a time for everythin’, and yours is just comin’. So. Do you still wanna forge that sword? ‘cause it’ll be your own, this time. You’ll need it.”

I don’t really have time to agree. Reiner keeps my shirt fisted in his grip and drags me to the anvil, shoving the bag that looks like it weighs at least a few hundred kilo behind with his foot. It’s both impressive and – even more terrifying that Marco’s still staring into thin air like he’s just seen a ghost.

“Wait, what – I mean, yes, I still want to – what?” My incoherent babbling is interrupted by Reiner pressing a metal bar from the bag into my hands, patting my back in a manner that’s probably meant to be affectionate but almost sends me flying instead.“ _Oof!_ Hey, what – alright, silent treatment, huh? And what is this metal even?” I let my fingers glide over the surface, trying to figure out the temperature to melt it at. It’s smooth and looks like silver, but as the light catches in it, there’s a rainbow of colours bursting on the surface. It’s beautiful.

“You’ll find your way with it. Sorry, gotta get Marco some clothes now. Be back with ya in a few.” Reiner grins and nudges Marco’s shoulder with his knee, waking the starchild from his trance. He jumps to his feet with a surprised squeak, and the blanket follows gravity back down to the floor.

Oh fuck. Well, that’s awkward.

I yank my eyes back to the block of whatever-metal in front of me, but there’s still heat rising in my cheeks. I didn’t even see anything. It’s the fact that, in theory, I might have seen a certain something. Shit, I’m the most awkward person ever.

I’m not sure if Marco can blush, but there might have been a red tinge in the freckle-stars on his cheeks when he runs past me into a room to which Reiner’s opened the door for him. Reiner throws me a last glance, and I return it, my face a grimace.

"I swear to god, I'll fuckin' kill you if I don't get my answer right now." Reiner knows that I'm joking. He also knows that my impatience and my anger are brothers that follow onto each other. His face doesn't give away what he's thinking, but he takes a deep, slow breath.

“Wait till he's got some clothes on. We're back in a moment. Get this melted.” He points to the metal in my hands. I open my mouth and close it again. It's no use. I simply nod, my fingers clenching around the cool crude metal. And then Reiner leaves, follows Marco and closes the door behind them.

I’m not getting any more words. Reiner shuts the door behind him and Marco, and I’m left with a bar of metal in my hands and a new flood of questions, rising panic and a spark of red freckles in my mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The journey has only just begun.
> 
> Comments and kudos are appreciated.
> 
> My tumblr is [here](http://moami.tumblr.com/).


	6. Warrior

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry - but it has to be this way.  
> I have a **[twitter](https://twitter.com/Moami_)** and a **[tumblr](http://moami.tumblr.com/)**. Scream at me.

**“Did we create a modern myth  
** **Did we imagine half of it  
** **Would happen in a thought from now  
** **Save yourself  
** **Save yourself  
**   
**The secret is out  
** **The secret is out  
**   
**To buy the truth  
** **And sell a lie  
** **The last mistake before you die  
** **So don't forget to breathe tonight  
**   
**Tonight's the last  
** **So say goodbye”  
**   
_\- 30 Seconds to Mars: A Modern Myth_  
  


* * *

 

"Okay, say it already. I look weird in this, right?”

“What – _fuck_!”

A warm voice jolts me out of my dreamy apathy. I jump up from my chair in front of the oven, blood rushing through me like a hurricane. I grab the hammer and swirl around, sheavy sledge a step behind. Feet apart, ready to counter the weapon, where’s the attacker – _oh_.

Well, that’s fucking embarrassing.

My cheeks heat up like a damn sword in fire. I lower the hammer and breathe out.

It’s just _him_. My muscles relax, the hot embarrassment spreading all over my face.

“What the hell Marco, don’t scare me like that!”

“Oh - sorry!”

He stands there, hands clasped together in front of him, wings folded against his back, looking like a damn puppy that I just hit with a stick. His fingers shake a bit when he unlaces them and drops them to his sides.

I wish he’d stop being so adorable. It would make everything easier. At least then I wouldn’t feel guilty for snarling at him.

“I’m sorry,” Marco repeats, tip-toeing from one foot to another. His wings rustle, the tips coming forward to brush along the floor. He looks down, swallows. “I didn’t want to scare you-”

He doesn’t finish, but I know what word he’s missing.

 _Again_. He didn’t want to scare me again.

We don’t say it out loud. It’s silent for a few seconds, an eternity. Our first meeting is something we’ll never forget, I suppose – at least I won’t forget that. Or _him_. He’s too bright to push him into the darkness of my mind where the rest of my fucked-up, broken memories go.

Then my eyes wander lower, following his glance to the floor, and I remember how he lost his blanket right in front of me. Fuck, that was just a few minutes ago, and now I’m seeing him again. Too soon. The blush is painted onto my skin.

But hey, at least he’s wearing clothes now.

“You… aren’t naked anymore.”

Marco nods. “Yes. Reiner got me these.” He tugs at the hem of his shirt. “He’s very nice.”

“Mhm. Good. You can’t run around like a naked piece of night, after all.”

He giggles, a tiny noise that tingles in my ears. “Right, you humans are strange with your skin. But now you don’t have to be afraid anymore.” His voice goes soft over the last words. He has no idea how wrong he is.

“Guess so. At least you won’t get cold.”

I’m ashamed of the sting of disappointment that rips through my heart. Fine, it may bother me that I can’t see all of his stars anymore. Those things are just too damn pretty, and I keep telling myself that it’s the only reason, the only reason that he’s so fascinating, different… kind of cute. Oh fuck me with a hammer.

I’m losing myself.

I’m losing myself to him, his stars, the way the sun’s light catches in his eyes and makes them radiate happiness.

“Jean? Are you mad at me?” Marco’s voice is vibrating. He steps closer, tilting his head as he tries to understand what he did wrong, as if I’m the one from a whole different planet.

Fuck, I don’t want him to cry again. I can’t handle tears, and Marco’s been losing too many of them these days, too much pain and blood. My eyes wander over the bandage on his wing, then I stare back up at him.

“Uh, what? No. I’m not mad, really.” I throw him a broken grin - he almost, just almost, looks like a normal human being. “Sorry, I was thinking ‘bout something. I’m not mad,” I repeat. His face relaxes a bit. “Just – just don’t do that ever again. I mean, scaring me.”

“I’m sorry, I really thought you heard me come in.” Marco rubs his neck and bites his lip. “But I guess you were too distracted.”

His eyes are so bright, the golden spirals inside gleaming like bonfires. Pretty doesn’t even _begin_ to describe him. How could anyone be mad at him – _hurt_ him? How is he _real_? I want to slay the people who did this to him. I want to pull him close and tell him that he’s wanted and that someone out there loves him.

That his family will come back.

Mine didn’t. Maybe he’ll be luckier than me.

“’s fine. Jus’ don’t sneak up on me like that, alright?” I snort and stretch my arms up, feeling the tension from sitting like an old man for too long vanish from my bones. The fire’s burnt low, the metal inside the mold a shimmering silver.

Marco’s lips curl into a warm smile. “Got it. I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to.” He clears his throat, swinging his arms. “Okay, so what do you think now?” He points down on himself, then swirls in a narrow circle, his wings fluttering a bit. “Do they suit me?”

That smile on his lips is so warm, and it takes me a long, awkward moment to pull myself out of their charm. Right, his new clothes. I can’t suppress a small grin. It’s just too adorable how he’s jumping around like a child. Excited like a boy on his birthday. Marco may be the only thing that keeps me from slamming my head into the closest wall and dig my fingers into Reiner’s throat.

“Alright, stop moving for a sec and lemme see you properly.”

I take a step back and examine him. Marco giggles, wings twitching, and bounces on the heels of his feet. “I like them, they’re warm and soft. Do you think it’s okay to go out like this?”

I throw him a doubting glance. “Well…” Marco’s lips fall, and he bites his lip. His fingers curl back together.

“Not okay? I can change, I’m sure Reiner still has some-”

Adorable.

“Hey, calm down,” I laugh, swatting his shoulder. I really can’t take it to see him nervous. Or afraid. Or… broken. “It looks really good. I was just messing with you. Revenge for the jumpscare.” Now I can just hope that humans and starchildren share a certain sense of humour.

“Oh!” Marco’s face lights up and he flashes a grin back at me. His arms relax and then he shoves my upper arm. “You got me there. I guess that means that we’re even.”

I shrug and return to my chair, slumping back down, but the smile stays. How’s he even doing this? It’s like he puts a spell on me, something star-lit and bright. I hope he isn’t really working some strange magic on me. Who knows what that does to my brain and the things that roam inside it.

“Yeah, whatever. But anyways, don’t worry ‘bout going outside. All you need is a hood and you’re fine.” I point to his face. Marco automatically touches his cheek, looking confused.

“Why a hood?” He furrows his brows. “You and Reiner don’t wear one.”

I cross both arms over my chest and stretch out my legs, giving him a last look. “Your face would tell everyone that you’re not exactly the average human.”

“Oh. Didn’t even think about that.”

“Thought so.” A thought stirs in my head, and I frown, wondering if - “You ever seen humans before?”

A quick shake of his head, and Marco scratches his neck. He thinks hard for a second. “No. I mean, only from far away. We lived close to a village, but I never went there.” That explains why he moves as if he’s never worn clothes before. It’s probably the first time there’s been fabric on his body.

I wonder if he gets cold, if he ever freezes or ever needs a winter coat. I wonder if he knows what weapons are, and books, and what the words he sang in that breathtaking language of his meant. There are thousands of questions and not enough time to answer even a few. Reiner will be back soon.

I clear my throat and shuffle around, glancing at him in corner bites.

He’s taller than me, I’m calm enough to notice now. His hands are larger. His lips widen into a much brighter smile than the one I practiced in an old mirror every day so I wouldn’t forget how to fake happiness. He may be lost and hurt and lonely, but somehow he’s still carrying a halo around his soul.

Losing him will hurt more than I could ever admit.

“Guess you’ll be seeing more humans than you ever wanted to now.” I’m not getting better with this whole being-sensitive thing. “No idea what Reiner’s planning, but don’t you worry. I ain’t leaving you behind, okay? You won’t be alone anymore.”

Please, _please_ , I beg to any god listening, don’t let me fuck this up.

I breathe in till my lungs feel like bursting. I don’t look at him. “You’ll be alright, I promise. I’ll make it all okay.”

And Marco just smiles, bright and shy, the freckles on his cheeks twinkling. I watch him from the corner of my eye. His wings flutter softly, their tips curling.  He’s either nervous, or afraid – or, please let it be true, he’s happy.

Maybe for once in my life I can do something right, because Marco’s voice is low and warm like liquid copper when he speaks.

“Okay. Thank you, Jean.” My name sounds foreign on his tongue, the last letter vibrating on his lips like a harp’s string. I like it. “I don’t think I can talk about it just yet, but thank you.”

His parents. 


“You’re welcome,” is all I can manage. There are no words, no comfort good enough for losing everything you’ve ever loved.

The only thing I remember from my childhood is the deep crimson colour of blood on my mother’s hands, and a pain so wild, so violent that all other memories after it are white and dead.

I sigh and stare at the door that Reiner had vanished behind. “S’he still in there? If he ain’t coming out soon, I’m gonna get him myself.”

“Uhm.” Marco’s breath hitches when he speaks a bit too quick, his tongue stumbling over the words. “He actually said that he’ll be back in a few moments. Had to get something from the market. Just a minute, and we’re supposed to just sit here and-”

“And wait. ‘f course.” Again. My fingers clench into fists, the air in my lungs tastes bitter. Marco falls silent and ducks his head.

“I’m sorry.”

“Ain’t your fault.”

“Okay.”

I close my eyes and put my head in my hands. The fire whispers. Marco’s wings rustle here and there when he tiptoes through the smithy and looks around.

We wait.

\----

The silence is only interrupted by the metal sizzling over the fire. I open my eyes again after what feels like an eternity. I let them wander, over the walls and the dirty, dust-clouded windows, to the oven’s fire and my own feet in torn shoes. Anywhere but his face.

There’s something I want to say, but words are hard and feelings are even harder. I wish I never had to speak.

Reiner still isn’t back.

Marco’s looking at me, waiting for something. Fuck. I have to say something, change the topic, make him laugh or just _anything_. There’s darkness stirring in his eyes, clouding his face as the corners of his mouth curl down.

I manage to find a poor spark of bravery in the back of my mouth.

“But honestly, how are you looking so good in that? It’s like this shit’s made for you!”

Alright, keep going, not the worst start to a conversation I ever had. Marco looks up and tilts his head. There’s a smile shimmering on his mouth again. I grin at him, putting a hand on my hip and scanning him from head to toe with a playfully strict expression.

“Lookin’ just like a respectable citizen. Hey, did Reiner cut out holes for your wings?”

“Yeah, he did! You noticed?” His shy little smile is back, the tension ghosting out of his body. He turns around and points towards his back. “See? It’s actually really comfortable. I don’t have to wear them tucked under the shirt.”

For once, I’m not even lying. Those clothes really suit him, even though they’re nothing special. Reiner probably just got the cheapest stuff he could afford. But Marco seems to have the ability to make the dirtiest rags look like the King’s crimson cloak. I remember the forest, and how he made darkness look like moonbeams, and a strange warmth rises in my fingertips.  It’s just a simple, dark shirt and pants in some washed-out, indefinable colour, but it floats like starlight on him. His feet are still naked and as I look down, he shuffles them around.

“You’ll get used to them. Bet there’ll be a ton of girls throwin’ themself at you soon enough.”

“Thank you, Jean. That’s nice,” Marco murmurs  - is that a blush around the tiny fields of stars on his cheeks?

Star-freckles. Rays of light on skin that looks too soft to believe.

I’m such an idiot.

I run my hands through my sweaty hair and furrow my brows. “Yeah. Nice. Sure.” It’s called trying to make conversation, star-butt. Seems we’re both horrible at doing this whole small-talk thing after he crashed into me.

I heave myself out of the chair and nudge the mold with my hammer, checking whether the metal’s hard. It is. The liquid doesn’t move anymore on the surface, the steam rising up from the silver material slowly fading. I put the hammer down and turn back to Marco and his curling toes.

“No shoes?” I point at his feet with the hammer, and his toes curl more. Cute. He bites his lip – nervous, I chart on the starmap of Marco’s mannerisms. “I don’t like shoes,” Marco admits, smiling – shy, still nervous around me. “It’s probably silly, but I like to feel connected to the ground I walk on. I can’t feel the earth through shoes. Reiner said it’s a starchild thing.”

I can’t help but laugh and shake my head, and my body releases the last of its tension. “If you say so. Wanna sit down and help me?”

“Uhm, okay? What are you doing, still smoldering?” Marco pulls another chair next to mine, sitting down and flipping his wings over the backrest. I nod and point to the mold where the surface is hard and unyielding.

“There, see?” I put a hand against his back and press him forward, tracing my fingers over the crude sword without touching it. Marco follows my head, his eyes wide and fascinated.

“It – it’s blue!” His wings fall over my fingers, soft and dark and I just want to run my fingers through them and find out if he’s ticklish, if he likes to be touched where they sprout out of his back, but I don’t do it because it’s silly and I don’t even like him.

Not one bit.

Lying to myself is something I’m brilliant at.

“Yeah,” I say instead, my hand pulling back and lacing up with the other in my lap. “I dunno what kind of metal Reiner got me there, but it ain’t normal. Had a hard time bringing it to temperature.” The new sword doesn’t sizzle anymore as it cools down, and now the blue colour Marco saw is more visible. There’s a translucent shimmer on the surface, and the light catches in it like a small rainbow. Marco whispers, “Now it’s red,” his finger following the line of the sword’s handle inside the mold. The fire flickers in the oven, and a warm light illuminates the sword in thousands of colours.

“Wow,” we say at the same time. I swallow. My fingers tickle to touch it. “I bet it’s magic.”

“Do you think it’s dangerous?” Marco’s voice shakes the tiniest bit. He looks at me from under dark hair, lips caught between his teeth again. I shake my head.

“No. Pretty sure it’s not. I mean…” I know I shouldn’t trust Reiner, but my heart wants to believe in him so fucking badly that it hurts.

I take a deep breath and slide my chair back. It makes an ugly creak, a second one following when Marco imitates my movement, turning his chair around so he can look at me and sit on it with his arms crossed on the headrest. He props up his chin and furrows his brows, thinking hard.

“You mean _what_?” he asks, head tilted to the side.

I rub a hand along my neck, feeling the sweat drip down from the hair there. My heart’s still hammering like a burning flame, hot and wild, and the old anxiety returns.

Marco’s eyes rest on my face. It’s hard to get the words out. My other hand twitches and curls into my pants, nails scraping over the rough fabric.

“I mean that if he wanted to hurt me – or you, _any_ of us – then he could’ve done that already.”

The heavy air sucks out my breath, leaving my lungs dried out. The world slows down. Everything is more intense, and the sunlight lets colour appear between the stars on his skin. Marco doesn’t say anything for a long, long time, and I’m about to just jump to my feet and shake him by the shoulders.

Nobody can be that blind. He has to see it, has to _see_ that Reiner isn’t who he seems –

“I need to tell you something.” He exhales, slow, his hands clasping around the chair’s headrest.

My heart start to thunder. “What?”

“I couldn’t tell you before. I wasn’t sure that it was true and I didn’t want to upset you without reason.” His fingers tighten around the wood, and he does the lip-licking thing again, the one that drives me crazy, and makes my chest go tight. “It’s – it doesn’t have to be bad, it’s just… something about Reiner.”

“What do you mean?” I repeat. There’s nothing but the fire sizzling, no noise. Silence. Marco’s wings twitch and he presses them onto his back, making himself smaller, less vulnerable.

“Marco, tell me.”

His wings fall down. He takes a deep breath.

“Reiner isn’t-”

The smithy’s door creaks.

“…Human. That what you wanted to say?” A deep, strong voice that I would recognize anywhere.

Shit. I didn’t even hear him come in. Marco jolts upright the same moment that I do and steps in front of me, his dark wings spreading out. I step forward and almost run into him, feathers brushing my face. The air feels like pure glass, stinging in my lungs and chest, slitting open my throat when I swallow.

The truth drowns out any lie, no matter how loud and powerful.

Reiner leans in the doorframe, holding a large sack in his hands. His eyes flicker between me and Marco, and he quirks a brow at the wings in front of my body.

“Boys, sit down. I ain’t hurtin’ you.” His smirk isn’t friendly anymore, no trace of the man who was like a second father to me. He never really was, a soft mean voice in the back of my mind whispers.

I touch Marco’s wing, the one that isn’t injured and trembling from strain. “Hey, s’fine. Don’t hurt yourself.” I sound broken, a wounded animal, a prey before the hunter. My soul screams _‘run, take him with you, do anything but please just go!’,_ and I ignore it by biting my lip, hard and long. “It’s okay.”

I’m not going to leave him behind. The pain in his eyes is like my breath being stolen, my blood freezing. I can’t take it, can’t see him cry and hurt ever again.

I’ll protect him.

Reiner doesn’t move. He just stares at us. “Calm down. Ain’t I told you I ain’t gonna hurtin’ you? Could’ve done it but I won’t.”

“Yeah. We know.” My hand’s still on Marco’s wing, tugging it down. “Let’s just listen, okay?” I whisper.

Marco doesn’t say a word, but after a moment’s stare he steps aside, wings lowering. The feathers vanish from my cheeks, and I can see Reiner again. My chest unclenches. _He won’t hurt us_ , I think, ignoring the stirring panic in my guts. He’s not moving. He just stares at us, calm, no light in his bottomless eyes.

Marco whimpers, and I’m by his side in a heartbeat. “Shit, you need to sit down. Stop moving your wing already!”

“I – I’m okay.” He’s not, and my mouth goes dry and sour when blood seeps through his bandage.

“Fuck, you need to sit down!”

“No, I-” Marco throws a last glance at Reiner, then his eyes fall shut, eyebrows drawn together. His fingers touch my shoulder and grip it, groaning. “Okay.”

I grab his arms and help him sit down on the floor. He shouldn’t even move that much, and for a moment, my attention slips away from Reiner, the ache in my head unimportant. Only Marco matters.

“Careful, yeah? It’s okay, really. You don’t have to, you know… protect me. I’m fine.”

He snorts and drops his head against my shoulder. We’re side by side, Marco leaning into my waist. “Sure. Nothing dangerous here, right?” The glance he shoots over to Reiner is too sharp for his warm eyes, his soft face.

“Exactly,” Reiner says, eyes cold. Marco laughs, hollow. His fingers shake as he leans against me with too much pressure, seeking me without words. One of his wings curls over his shoulder and into his lap – the hurt one, where the blood still colours his bandage crimson and cruel - and the other slides over my back, embracing me in tickly, dark feathers.

I don’t get to enjoy his warmth, the closeness of his breath against my neck. There’s no chance for me to finally get something I’ve been longing for years and years. No rest for the wicked.

Because now, finally, Reiner sits down in front of us, crossing his legs and breathing in slowly – to speak. To tell the truth that’s been driving knives through my heart and blood rushing in my veins.

“Marco’s right,” he says. The smithy drowns in silence. Even the fire is quiet, flames burning low and gold like a fading sun. I hold my breath, and the starchild by my side closes his eyes.

“What?” I don’t want to know. But that’s how life is – in the end, the truth comes out and everything shatters.

“I ain’t human. Not completely. Your people have many words for things like me, and none of them are all true.”

Fucking _shit_.

My heart flutters behind my thin ribs, a small bird trying to escape its prison. A warm hand slips into mine and wings tighten around me. Marco’s shaking, his breath quick and sharp. My blood rushes like thunder and lightning, a storm is rising inside me.

Reiner doesn’t look away as he speaks, and his words weigh more than a whole sky full of stars.

“Let’s go with _‘phoenix’_ for now.”

He opens one hand, and his palm goes up in glowing, crimson flames, licking at his skin and hissing. Smoke rises from his nose, dark and thick and shifting like a snake winding through the earth. A shadow falls on the wall behind him, and Marco gasps for air. My own throat hurts, my muscles screaming and begging me to move, but I can’t.

Reiner smiles. The sadness in his eyes is golden, and the shadow behind him forms a pair of wings made from smoke and ashes and embers. Sparks twitch under his skin, pulse in his veins. Then, he bursts into flames, the fire slithering up his arms and sliding under his clothes. A raw, wild growl rises in the smithy.

“Fuckin’ _shit_!”

“Jean, careful-!”

There’s a pair of arms flying around me, a face buried in my neck, and Marco’s feathers shielding us from the flames. My scream drowns in the flames’ roar. Marco presses against me as our fingers lace up and cling to each other.

We watch Reiner rise and transform, and something in the darkest caves of my heart cracks. He’s always, always lied to me.

Everything is heat. Everything burns. The oven has gone out, all energy and fire swirling around the man who raised me like his own son and now flares brighter than the sun.

Reiner is all light and sparks, but he’s so goddamn _different_ from Marco. I raise both hands to shield my eyes, press closer to the shivering body next to mine. Marco pulls his wings back, giving a panicking noise that sounds like pain, and crawls deeper into my arms. The fire doesn’t reach us, but god, it’s so fucking _hot_. My face burns, feels like it’s melting off, and I don’t know if we’re going to die or live or what’s the truth and what’s just a beautiful, terrible lie.

I’m afraid for Marco’s feathers, that his wings are going to get burnt and that he’s going to save me, that the boy who’s got a heart too good for this world will sacrifice himself for dirt like me. His hair tickles my neck, and when he looks up again, fear darkening his face, our eyes meet. His pupils are blown wide and silver. I squeeze his fingers, swallow, and we both stare at that living sunrise, that firework of ash and light.

Reiner still smiles.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Then the fire dies and he’s back to being human, at least on the outside. He’s back to skin and bones and flesh, but he’s not Reiner anymore. The smithy falls into half-dimmed darkness.

\---

There’s nothing at first. No words, no hatred, no anger. Nothing.

Then Marco lowers his wings and lifts his head from my neck. His eyes are brimming with tears, he stares at me, then at Reiner. My fingers tighten around his hand, his quick pulse beating against my skin. I remember how to speak for a question.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Marco slides closer to me, silent. His wings are low but shaking, the bandage on his shoulder bleeding like a crimson sunrise. He knows that it’s my question, that Reiner owes me so fucking much. But he still doesn’t say anything, and that’s when my wrath bursts like glass.

“Why? Give me on goddamn reason! You – I thought you trusted me, that I’m more than just another stupid apprentice-”

“You are.” Reiner’s voice is heavy, and there’s a gravity to it. I shiver. “You are so much more. And you’re right, you deserve the truth. So please – let me tell you as much as I can. You’ll understand.”

“Oh yeah? That’s what you said the, let me think, about fifty times before that, too?”

There’s still dark fire gleaming in his eyes and sparks flashing on his forearms. They wink out like stars, only to reappear in his hair, along the sharp line of his jaw. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before – how different he is. That there’s nothing human in his strength, in the way he works metal as if he’s been born to live in fire and smoke.

“What are you going to do to us?”

Marco. I snap out of my thoughts, my head jolting over to him. He’s moved from my side, but his wing is still around me, feathers pressing to my back. Marco raises his head up high and clenches his fists. Reiner stares back at him, calm, his eyebrows raised. “You think I’ll hurt ya?”

“Yes. I know your kind. You could wipe us away with a snap of your fingers.”

Well, isn’t that fucking great. Now I get why Marco was so paralyzed after Reiner touched him. He probably didn’t know what that guy was, but he felt his magic.

I feel like I’m going to throw up.

“Do ya really think I would, after all I did for ya two? No way in hell.” Reiner chuckles and shakes his head. Neither me nor Marco join his laughter. Shit, I trusted him, I tell myself over and over again. I could be dead by now. I could be a smoldering pile of ashes.

Reiner’s smile dies. He throws Marco a long glance, and his eyes narrow as a golden spark flies through them. “I’d never lay a finger on ya,” he says, and I’m not sure if it’s him or the fire in the oven that just gave a dark hiss. “Would be stupid to hurt the boy I’m s’pposed to protect, huh?”

He – what?

He’s supposed to protect me. Protect. He has to keep me safe…

The _thing_ whispers a word I can’t understand, and all breath is ripped out of my lungs.

“What do you mean, protect him?” Marco says, confusion reflecting off his dark face. “What’s this all about – the war, people dying, I want to know-”

Reiner cuts him off with a sharp wave of his hand. “Not now, Marco.”

“But you _can’t just-_ ”

“I said not now,” Reiner growls, his teeth gritting and the muscles in his arms twitching. A shiver runs through Marco’s body. “Okay,” he whispers, sliding back to my side and clinging to my hand harder. I want to say something, but Reiner stares at me again. “You know the truth. It’s all inside you. Eight years ago, Jean. Do you remember?”

The thing hisses and rams its filthy claws into my mind, tearing at me. I slam both fists against my temples and whimper, Marco’s hand still caught in one.

“Jean? Jean, what’s wrong?” The wing around my back quakes in panic, his captured hand struggling. His free hand runs over my face, my neck, any skin he can reach. “What are you doing to him?”

I can’t hear him anymore. That beast, that monster inside me raises its head and opens its eyes, but there’s nothing behind them but the abyss.

I stare into it. My mouth is ripped open in a scream, face twisted in a mad grimace that makes my jaw hurt.

“Don’t you dare, Reiner – no! Stop it, you can’t – he can’t take your magic, you’re too strong!”

“Quiet. He’s strong. He’s gotta push through.”

It hurts, oh god it hurts, so fucking badly – its claw drag down my flesh, relishing in my screams as they slit me open and bleed me dry. Everything’s red and fear and my head is going to fucking burst –

“Jean,” Reiner echoes, far away. “Remember. Remember how they died. Your parents, Jean, you have to find their memories.”

“Oh my god,” Marco says, tiny and broken.

The smithy disappears.

I’m caught inside my own head. A violent, overwhelming power pulls me deeper, forcing me to face something rising up to meet me.

I can’t control my body.

My fingers curl around thin air and Marco’s hand, my mouth opening into a choked scream. No sound comes out. The pain of my muscles cramping and shaking as they rebel is almost unbearable. Reiner’s magic tears at my barricades, rips me open like a predator tearing into a fresh corpse.

And I break.

The world swirls into a maelstrom of colours and shadows before my eyes. Everything is darkness and fear and then there’s a light on the edges of my frayed, shattered vision.

I bite my tongue till there’s blood, and my mind fucking _riots_.

The metallic taste – eight years ago. My mother smiles, her hand sliding down my cheek. It leaves a wet trail of blood, and I look down my hands, red, red, _red._ The truth. I asked for the truth, and now I’m getting all of it – along with the storm that crashes down like a wild animal. The hunt has begun.

The walls of my mind crack.

I can’t hear what Marco says, barely feel him shake my shoulder, call my name in a desperate, broken voice. His hand isn’t in mine anymore. “Jean, _Jean-_ ”

“Jean, listen to me.” Not Marco. The magic pushes me deeper, Reiner’s voice thunder. “Listen carefully. You have to remember them, and you have to remember what happened that night. Your parents – do you know what happened?”

Reiner’s inside my head, his magic a giant cloud of fire and smoke that spreads through me, my veins, and pulses inside my blood. It lifts something from the bottom of my soul that I didn’t know was there.

The fire in the oven roars, and the flames rise up, lining all of us with a golden circle of flickering light. Marco and Reiner are gone. Everything’s far, far away, in another dimension. I’m not in the smithy anymore.

Reiner’s magic pulls back and leaves something behind.

I whimper as his invisible power retracts from my body, and I fall to the side. I don’t hit the ground because something warm and shivery catches me. A voice, pleading for me to come back. “Jean, Jean.”

He calls my name, and I want to say yes. I want to go back to Marco. But the thing that Reiner pulled from me twitches and coils, and as I dare to turn my tear-blinded eyes towards it, I slip away from reality once again.

It’s – it’s a memory.

An old memory, weak red veins pulsing, almost like a real heart. It’s dark and fragile, and when I close my eyes and dive head-first into it, my body shaking from Reiner’s magic, there’s smoke and fire flood around me and my head rolls back as I fall deep into the past of my own mind.

 ---

“Don’t touch him.”

“What did you do to him?!”

“Calm down. He’s alright.”

“Just look at him – Jean? Jean, can you hear me?”

Marco’s voice is blurry, the panic in it barely reaching my mind. It emerges from a fog of slurred words and scattered, whispered syllables, and my mouth opens to reply. My body’s still numb, but it fades away as I try to move my fingers, wiggle around a bit. Someone’s holding me tight against a warm thing – Marco?

Oh.

I open my eyes, blinking.

“Jean,” Marco says, voice cracking. His fingers brush my face, pushing away a strand of hair. He’s shaking. A tear runs down his cheek when I give him a cracked smile, and he exhales.

“Jean, _oh Himmel._ God, are you – can you hear me?”

He’s reverting back to his native tongue, and I almost laugh. Even when he’s afraid and shaking, it still sounds so beautiful.

I can’t reply, can’t speak. My mouth is dry and my lungs feel like they haven’t breathed in an eternity. I squeeze a part of Marco’s body I can reach, which turns out to be his ankle, and he smiles.

“Thank god you’re alright.” There’s a quiet rustle, and light touches my face. His wings spread out as he pulls them away from me. Reiner’s still sitting there, watching. Marco holds me in a shaking embrace, and he looks up at Reiner, eyes gone darker, teeth gritting under his twitching jaw. “Are you _insane_? You can’t just cast a spell over him! Anything could have happened, he could have _died_ from shock or whatever bad stuff you made him see!”

“He was never in danger,” Reiner says, but Marco snaps into his words.

“I thought we could trust you! I thought you could help us, that my mother wouldn’t send me to someone who’s – who’s a phoenix!” He breathes in, his chest moving against my cheek where my face is pressed against his body.

Marco grabs my arms and pulls me closer, sliding us away from Reiner. I can barely make out the words they speak through the flood of images and noises, long lost memories that return to my inner eye as vivid and colourful as if they were real – right here, right now.

Reiner’s silhouette shifts the slightest bit. “It was necessary. For the things that he’s gonna have to face, he’ll need those memories. Believe me, I didn’t wanna do this – ever. I just wanted to protect him.”

“I don’t believe you.” Marco’s breath tickles my neck; I’m curled on his lap now. My body is remembering how to move, but nobody notices my uncurling fingers.

There’s impatience vibrating in Reiner’s voice, an urgency I don’t remember. “We ain’t got much time left. Tomorrow or tonight, we’re gonna leave Shiganshina, and I need Jean to be ready. He’ll wake up soon, and then he’s gonna need you.”

“F-fuck…” My head’s all chaos and madness, but I somehow manage to speak.

“You’re awake!” Marco’s arms around me tense, his breath strokes my face.

“Yeah, alive and kickin’. Shit, ugh.”

I grab Marco’s shirt and brace both hands against his chest, lifting myself up into a swaying but upright position. The world’s still spinning around like a whirlwind, but at least I can move again.

“Careful! Don’t hurt yourself.” Marco helps me sit up and slings a strong arm around my waist.

I drop my head against his shoulder and flash him a shy, thankful grin. “I’m okay, really. Don’ worry ‘bout me.”

Marco snorts. “Of _course_ I’ll worry. Reiner here had the brilliant idea to just cast a spell on you. That so dangerous, I don’t even know where to start. He could have _killed_ you, for god’s sake!”

Reiner massages the bridge of his nose and glares at Marco. “I know how to do this. Don’t explain my own magic to me.”

“Really Marco, I’m not hurt, I’m _fine-_ ”

“No, you’re _not_!” Marco says, and his voice goes high-pitched and shrill. “And _you_!” He glares at Reiner, his eyes flaring slits of light. “You _asmrynik_ better have a good reason for doing this to him!” I don’t know what that word means, and I’m not sure I want to know. Reiner’s lips twitch as if he’s about to explode. He drops his hand, and his nose carries the trails of his fingernails being pressed into his skin.

“I ain’t got time for this bullshit. Jean, do you remember everything? You need to tell me.”

“I – I think I do.”

And fuck, do I remember well.

His words trigger something just like before, and it’s not even magic. Everything Reiner pulled out is right there, bursting through my mind. The thunderstorm of memories that flooded me rises up again and comes crashing down. “Fuck! What the – oh my god, I can’t – make it stop, _shit_!” I moan and slam both hands against my temples, trying to fight the horrible mix of screams, images, and blood. So much blood, dripping from my hands –

“Alright, that’s it. You won’t touch him _ever again,_ do you understand me?” Marco’s voice cuts through my head like a knife. He jumps to his feet, my support jerked from under me, and stomps towards Reiner, grabbing his shirt with both fists. And I barely believe it, but that shy, scared starchild hauls my former boss up to his feet with a dark growl. Sweet, innocent starchild, getting angry because – because someone hurt me? _Shit_. My heart beats like rolling thunder – he _cares_ about me.

God, I have it bad.

Reiner doesn’t fight back. Marco can’t lift him off the floor, but he holds him close to his face, and the air between them flashes with boiling tension.

“You won’t touch him again,” Marco repeats, voice calm and dark like the sea before a storm. “You’ll stay away from him. And if you’re trying to hurt him again, you have to get past me first. I have no idea why my family thought they could trust you, but-”

The chaos inside my head stills. A memory crystallizes out of the smoking bundle of darkness, and words form on my tongue.

“There was an attack.”

Marco looks over his shoulder, panic in his glowing eyes. “What?”

I barely hear him. The black smoke morphs into an order of pictures, noises and scents lacing up to build a whole world before my eyes. There’s a small house inside a forest, a woman’s laughter.

Somewhere far away, Reiner chuckles.

“There we go. Sit down, Marco. You’re gonna wanna hear this.”

And there it is. My story. The past that I forgot about, eight years ago. All I know from my childhood is that I’m afraid of the forest, that something terrible, heartbreaking had happened behind the rows of ancient trees.

My mouth is moving before I understand it, and Marco and Reiner hear every word that was hidden so deeply in my mind.

“I… I remember.” The words come slow, hesitant, a distant, unfamiliar voice. “I woke up and there was blood on my hands. I was in the forest, it was dark and scary and I wanted to go, just go home, I didn’t know where I was. Why I was alone, why did Mama leave me behind? Where was Papa, my family. And then, then I tried to get up, and something in my back hurt – who did this, I don’t know, I don’t know. The bloodis-”

My hand reaches back, tearing my shirt over my head. I know, I know what happened, why I look like a goddamn freak.

Somewhere out of my vision, away from what my eyes are able to see, Marco sobs, and Reiner takes a deep breath. “God.”

The shirt slips over my shoulders and reveals my naked back.

I never knew where it came from. It was just there since I can remember – a scar carved into the full length of my spine, from my neck down to my tailbone, a deep abyss of flesh.

“Th-this.” I choke on the words as they stumble out of my mouth. “The blood came from _this_.”

The skin is thick, dark with unfading crimson. It tugs with every move, even when I’m asleep. I don’t touch it, and nobody’s ever seen it till this day. It runs so deep that I never knew how I survived. Fuck, if someone slit open my back so deep that the remaining scar is fingers wide – how am I alive? What in the world happened to me?

I never want to know.

A shaking hand slips into mine and squeezes. Reiner says something, words blurred and smeared around the hazy edges, but Marco snarls back. They both fall silent again when I continue, clinging to the warmth in my palm.

“Mama told me to hide.” The memories roar now, the storm in my head merciless. I’m forced to speak, to say it out loud – and it’s the only way that I really understand what’s going on in my head. “Papa was gone, he was fighting… there were other people, wounded and crying. Some were on the ground. Dead.” My heartbeat echoes in my ears, my blood slowing down. “The sky went dark. I’ve never seen Mama so afraid. She made me hide in the basement, forced me into one of those boxes  – Stay, stay here, don’t come out. I was so scared, there were screams and people howling and I wanted them to _leave_.” The world tastes like silver. “Please, _please_ make them leave, make them go away.”

It all returns.

Her face, the colour of her eyes and the way she smiled when kissing me goodnight. All the memories of my parents that I had forgotten return with the force of a wild hurricane.

“I don’t know how long it went. They were screaming for so long, and I think they – they were fighting. It sounded like swords crashing, and maybe – maybe there was magic. I was inside the box, trying to be small, and quiet, hoping that Mama would be okay, that Papa would watch out, for her, for him. Then… it was silent.”

Tears pour down my face. Marco is by my side, holding my hand, fingers shaking around mine, his wings a sky of stars around me. Reiner is quiet, one hand clasped over his mouth, his eyes black.

“I went out,” I whisper. I clench my fist at my heart, head bowed, focused inward. “I needed to help, needed to see if Mama was okay. It – everything was destroyed. Trees were ripped up, just a hole in the ground for all of the people. I couldn’t see them. It was like they had just… vanished.”

I dig my fingers into Marco’s tear-soaked shirt, bury myself in the warmth of his wings. His breath hitches, he shivers against me. He’s crying, too.

The last memory comes, vast, swamping my senses with white noise. I see it.

“My mother, she’s kneeling besides my father – there’s a knife. Tears on her face. I can’t say anything, I can’t move. She says something, I don’t understand. The knife is on _fire_ , blue fire, she’s _screaming_ , she – she was in pain. My father’s dead body, it – it twitched, and I couldn’t - but it _moved_. There was something inside it, it sounded like… it was _eating_ him. It was in his body, and it was _devouring_ him from the inside out.”

White cold seeps in my bones. I’m freezing, shaking down to where my heart patters behind my ribs. I can’t feel Marco anymore, don’t know if I’m still crying.

They’re dead.

“Jean.” Reiner says. “Please. You don’t have to tell us. Just look at it. Look at it and remember.”

Marco buries his face in my hair and cries. One of his tears runs down my cheek. I stare at the floor, at the emptiness that comes after that last memory.

My mother cutting out my father’s beating heart and sinking the burning knife into it. The dead body – he’s not my Papa, that’s just a something, not a person – twitching, a disgusting, horrifying screech coming from its insides.

Then my father’s hand rises up and it’s not a hand, oh god, it’s a black claw with buckled fingers that drip with something dark and terrible.

Mama smiles at me.

“ _Jean_ ,” she says, and closes her eyes.

The beast that was once my father screams in triumph and rams its filthy claw into her stomach.

“Dark. It all went dark.”

I hear my voice cracking around the words. I hear how I describe my mother’s death, but there’s another memory sliding into my vision – and my mouth falls shut.

“That’s everything, I think.” A large hand touches my forehead. Reiner. “He’s ice cold. We gotta lie him down. He has to rest.”

“I’ll stay with him.”

Someone lifts me up and carries me away. My eyes could be open or closed, but I wouldn’t see anything as I lose myself in the memory.

Marco and Reiner, the smithy, it all fades away, and the last thing I notice is a blanket being pulled over me and an embrace of soft wings.

“I’ll be here, I promise. Jean. Jean…”

\---

The last memory has no words. There’s nothing in it I could ever say.

I’m holding Mama’s hand. I don’t understand what’s happening, why, how. My mind refuses to accept that my father is – that the terrible beast inside him won. Everything tastes like blood and blue fire.

Mama’s head falls against my shoulder. Her breath stutters, comes in rapid little gasps. She kisses my forehead, and I sob out her name, Mama, Mama.

Please don’t go. Don’t leave me alone.

“You’re so brave, Jean. My brave little warrior. I’m so sorry.”

She grabs my arm and pulls.

I yell at her, tell her to stop because it hurts and I just want to hug her. I want to be in her arms and close to her heart, don’t want to believe that she’ll die. The blood spreads over her stomach, soaking the green dress that my father gave her.

“I want you to forget this.”

She pushes me down onto my stomach, rips up my shirt. I cry so hard that I barely understand her. It all hurts, the earth tastes like blood and death and it stinks like hell.

Her fingers trail over my back.

“We love you, sweetie. We always will.”

The knife slides into my skin smoothly, easy like butter.

I can’t even scream.

My body gives up when blood spills down my naked back, bones break under flaring blue fire.

I fall into empty darkness.

\---

“…It’s okay, shh. I’m here.”

“Marco?”

Wow, if that’s my voice, then I just woke up sixty years old.

“Yeah.”

Warm breath brushes my neck, making me shiver and shift. Not a good idea. My whole body convulses, a sharp wave of pain ripping through me.

“Oh god, fucking shit. What – ugh.” I try to move a finger, but the pain is still pumping, and I let it be.

“It’s okay,” Marco whispers next to my ear. We’re lying next to each other, sharing a warm blanket. He sounds like he hasn’t slept in weeks. His fingers touch my chest, and he flattens his hand over my heart.

Please, don’t make me get a heart attack just now.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “Don’t move, okay? You need some time to rest. I think you had a nightmare, too. You were whimpering.”

“Mhm.”

I nod the tiniest bit and roll my head against his shoulder. I’m curled against his chest, face tucked into his neck, and he’s wrapped around me, a nest of feathers and limbs.

I could get used to sleeping like this. It’s damn comfortable, and I get to count the stars on Marco’s collarbones. Which is a nice distraction. Anything’s better than –

“Do you… want to talk about it?”

And there we go.

“I can’t.” It’s the truth. “Just – no. Don’t wanna.”

I can’t even think about it yet, much less talk about it. Marco doesn’t know everything either, but I could tell him. I just don’t want Reiner to know that my back was slit open and bled out and I’m still alive and breathing. It’s all too much. Those memories were inside me all the time, locked away by mental walls. And Reiner tore them down.

“I can leave you alone, if you want to.” Marco nudges my shoulder with a finger.

“No!” Please don’t.” I clear my throat, the embarrassment rise in my cheeks. “I mean… could you stay? I don’t want you alone with Reiner.”

“Of course. Wouldn’t want you around him again, either.” Marco’s voice sinks low.. “He’s gone, anyways. Doing some business, he said. Preparing stuff.”

“Did he specify?” And do I even want to know? All that matters is that we’re still leaving Shiganshina and that it has to do with my memories. I can’t connect those two things with my wounded mind. My soul feels like it’s been dragged over glowing embers.

“No,” Marco says and nuzzles his face into my hair. Now I’m definitely blushing. “He helped me put you to sleep and left us alone. Just said he’s got work to do.”

I glance at him, barely able to keep my lids open. God, he’s gorgeous in the dark.

“I’m sorry you had to hear all of that,” I croak and bury myself back into his skin.

Marco laughs, but it’s bitter and the ghosts of tears follow his voice, tearing at its edges. “He forced this onto you. _He_ did this to you. It’s not your fault.” His eyes are the only bright thing in the darkness, along with the stars adorning his body. Silver halos around his pupils.

I close my eyes and breathe his scent in. I can’t tell what it is – maybe that’s what freedom, the night sky, and warmth smell like.

“When we leave Shiganshina with him, we’ll just run away.”

“What?” Marco blinks.

“We run away,” I repeat. “We have to. You said we can’t trust him, and there’s nothing holding us back. We’re free.”

I’ve always wanted to fly without chains.

“And then?” I shrug and move one arm around his waist, and it doesn’t matter that we’re close enough to breathe each other’s air. Tonight is different. He’s not scared to touch me. It feels good.

“I’ll protect you,” I whisper. And God, do I mean it. “I’m gonna fight anyone who tries to hurt you. We’ll run away from the hunters, from Reiner. From everything.”

“That sounds… good. Really good.” He smiles against my hair and sniffs. “I’m just glad that you’re still alive. I’ll come with you.”

That might be the nicest thing someone ever told me. And – he’s gonna stay with me. My heart does a stupid jump in my chest.

“I’m glad you’re not dead either.” Very smooth, Jean. But Marco laughs, because he’s great and wonderful, and his grip around my waist tightens the tiniest, softest bit.

“We can protect each other. And we’re gonna run away to somewhere safe. Where nobody finds us.”

I want to say something back, like I’m never leaving him again. Like he’s all I have. Marco’s breath fans over my face, and his nose almost touches mine – what’s happening –

But there’s heavy steps coming closer from the smithy’s back door, and the words die in my throat. We freeze as Reiner comes back in.

It’s silent.

Reiner stomps over to us and leans down, his breath heavy and ragged. He listens for a moment, but I’m good at pretending to sleep, and Marco’s probably tired enough to fake it, too. He didn’t have to stay up for me.

Reiner grunts, satisfied, and turns away. He stomps towards the smithy’s big oven, and I hear him slump down with a low groan. There’s a sound of metal clashing against metal, two harsh clinks after another. Reiner shuffles around, curses.

I dare to breathe again. The air rushes out of my lungs, and I suck in the scent of smoke. Reiner doesn’t notice, so I listen to what he’s doing.

He’s working on something. Minutes tick by, seconds counted by the chink of hammers, the creaking of bending metal. I can’t talk to Marco anymore. We can’t move, either, or he’ll notice. When I slit my eyes at Marco, his are still closed, lips parted around a soft rhythm. He’s asleep.

I try to stay awake, but Reiner’s monotonous working noises, the familiar silvery clinking of metal, lulls back into my dreams. My eyes slide shut.

The constant hammering of steel on iron guides the story of my nightmares, and the blood of my mother colours the back of my mind crimson.

\---

I jolt awake when something large presses down on my mouth.

“Mhhmm!”

“Shh. Quiet. Get up, we gotta go.”

Reiner looms over me, face dark and cold. I slap his hand off and shuffle back, my heart hammering like crazy.

“Don’t _touch_ me.” Hurt flashes through his eyes, and my gut clenches. He pulls back. “Where are we even going?”

“To a safe place.” Reiner nudges Marco at my side. “Somewhere nobody’s gonna find you two for now.”

For now?

Reiner’s hand clamps over Marco’s mouth like mine, and I can only rip it off when the starchild’s eyes are already open. Marco makes a choked, panicking noise, struggling under the blankets tangled around him.

“It’s okay,” I say, fingers shivering as they wrap around his face and turn it towards me. “Look at me. It’s okay, Marco. Shh. Nobody’s gonna hurt you.”

His name feels like it always belonged onto my lips.

It’s dark in the smithy, I can barely see anything. The moon shines through the windows, illuminating everything with a weak, silver glint. Smoke wafts through the room, and someone yells outside.

We can’t have slept more than a few hours. The night is still black and starless out the window, no morning in sight. Marco’s eyes are wide when I look at him, he’s shaking, but the brightness has returned to the lights all over his body. Good.  

Marco leans into my touch for a breathless moment and wraps both hands around my wrists. Fuck.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, voice scratchy from sleep. His wings twitch before he drags them out of the pile of blankets, unfolding them with a soft flap. “Why are you awake, you should rest-”

“We have to leave. _Now_.” Reiner grabs both of our arms and hauls us up.

“What the hell – stop! Let me go, stop it!”

I dig my heels into the ground, trying to rip my arm back. Marco whimpers next to me as Reiner pulls him forward. He’s too strong, there’s no chance in hell we can fight him.

“I trusted you!” I yell at him, slamming my fist against his back.

He doesn’t falter, just sighs and says, .“’m sorry. You’re gonna understand one day.”

I wish this hell would end already.

Reiner doesn’t let go of us and ignores our protests as he drags us out of the smithy and into the backyard. My loud anger dies out. There’s nothing left, no will to fight. The memories still gnaw at my mind, and I don’t think I can ever be okay again. I never was okay to begin with.

I give up my war, panting. Marco’s silent beside me. He stumbles after Reiner, biting his lip as he ducks his head. I reach for his hand and squeeze it. He swallows and glances at me, face drawn.   

We’re gonna run away.

Reiner stops once we’ve reached the backyard and shoves both of us in front of him. I would’ve protested if something else didn’t catch my eye. Marco gasps for air next to me, and his wings that were flapping in panic drop.

“What – what in the world is _that_?”

Reiner chuckles, no joy in it. His hand flattens against my back and pushes me and Marco forward.

“You ain’t gonna walk out of Shiganshina,” he says. “Those are Equinculi, and you’re gonna ride ‘em.”

Holy fucking shit.

There’s two creatures standing in the backyard, and when Reiner whistles, they raise their heads to stare at us.

My mouth drops open. Marco whispers “wow”, and he’s right. I have no idea what those things are, but they’re incredible.

At first glance, they look like horses, but they’re made of metal. Their hooves are silver, and I can see through the plates of their skin that there’s a shimmering skeleton of steel inside. They have hair made from thin strands of copper, small pearls lined up on them. Both of them carry a saddle on their back, their flanks loaded with large bags. A sword is strapped to one of them – my sword.

The things – _Equinculi_ – move towards us. Their steps are heavy and echo in the tiny backyard. I’m pretty sure one of their kicks could break my ribs.

As the strange creatures come closer, there’s a soft ticking noise sounding from them, like clockwork driving them forward. “They’re not dangerous,” Reiner promises us and gives me a determined shove. “C’mon, sit up.”

Marco swirls around and quirks a brow at him, eyes wide. “You want us to ride those things?”

Damn good question, really. My mouth is dry as fuck, so I can’t talk. Instead, I try to find a way past Reiner to get away from those _things_. But my boss stands like a mountain, looking down on me with steely eyes.

“They’re faster than any real horse and they ain’t gonna throw you off.”

“Would you care to explain why we have to go at all?” I grab a fistful of his shirt and try to pull him down to me. My teeth are gritted, and I’m shaking again as something dark, angry rises from my guts.

“Guys, please-” Marco tries to calm us down, but neither of us pay attention to him. The horses stand still, the mechanical organs inside them running. Where there should be eyes are just hollow sockets.

Reiner rips my fist out of his shirt and holds my wrist, his fingers digging into my skin. “Listen just for fuckin’ once,” he growls and leans down, his lips pulled back in a snarl. “I watched over you, a’ight? All this time, after ya came crawling outta that forest all bloody, I made sure someone took ya in. I made sure ya survived, left food for you at night, told everyone to get outta ya way. I talked people into givin’ you a job. God, I wish I could’ve taken ya in myself, given ya the home you deserve. Know why I didn’t? Why I couldn’t fucking do it?”

A horse’s cold, metallic nose nudges my back, but I don’t react. Marco coos some quiet words at them, touches their necks, and for some wondrous reason, they turn to him and calm down.

My mind’s gone blank.

I can’t see anything but Reiner, his voice piercing right through my stupid wounded heart. I’ve never seen him shiver before, but now there’s a wild trembling in his shoulders.

I burst out everything I’ve been holding in. “Wh – yeah, I’d fucking love to know why! Why weren’t you there if you’re my fuckin’ guardian? I was living on the streets, all on my own! Nobody cared about me! I was a goddamn _kid_!” I clench my fists and slam them against his chest, right over his heart. It hurts like hell, his skin is hot even through the clothes, and I howl when my hands twitch back in protest. Reiner doesn’t even flinch. His eyes are wet.

“You can feel it, right? Why you’re different. It’s that thing inside you.”

I drop my hands and stare at him. “What?” No. No, don’t tell me –

His hand grabs my shoulder, squeezing it hard. Reiner pulls me close into a harsh embrace, whispers behind choked down tears.

“I _couldn’t_ help you, I swear. I would’ve done anythin’ for you, Jean. Anythin’. But‘s time that you go somewhere safe. There’s gonna be someone who can help you.”

“You can’t do this,” I croak, tears welling up in my eyes. Why didn’t he tell me any of it? “You can’t send us away. You owe me an explanation.”

A wild, ear-shattering howl rips through the air.

Marco jolts and jumps to my side, his wings around my back.

“What the hell was that?” I breathe, skin alight.

“Shh,” Marco whispers to me and tugs at my sleeve, panic making his face look eerie. His stars flicker, a few die out. “Oh god. Oh god, it’s them.”

“Who?” I swallow around the lump in my throat, try to find the reason for his fear in the galaxies of his face.

Marco’s eyes turn to me. He stares into emptiness, bottom lip quivering.

“The – the hunters.”

“You have to go.”

Reiner pushes me off and raises his head as fire flares up on his arms. His clothes burn right off. Wings appear on his back, spreading into golden feathers of smoke and flames.

Marco doesn’t even throw him a second glance. His wings fold onto his back as he strides towards the horses, his shoulders shaking as he clings to one of the metal pieces that stick out from the animal’s neck. He mounts it easily, fingers slipping around two handles.

No. No, it can’t end like this.

Another howl echoes through the night, and Reiner gives a deep roar in response. It doesn’t sound human, not even like a living being.

“Reiner, I can’t – please. Don’t do this.” I feel the tears rise in my throat. My chest is tight and everything just hurts, hurts so bad that I want to rip my soul out and be at peace.

“I’m sorry.” He squeezes my shoulder again. A warm, bitter smile flashes on his thin lips. “They’re not after Marco. They’re after you.”

“Why?”

I feel my feet move when he pushes me forward to where Marco’s waiting on one of the horses, pressed flat on its back. He’s crying, clinging to the copper under his body for dear life.

“Trust me, just this once. All ya need to know is that I want you safe. All ya gotta do is flee. Sit up and let the Equinculi carry you.” Reiner takes my hand and places it on the horse’s neck. “Ya two need to get away. I’ll be right after ya. Promise.”

The metal is ice cold, but warms up too quickly under my touch. I slide my fingers over the animal’s fragile skeleton, then wrap my hand around the strap that secures the saddle.

I glance up at Reiner. My vision is blurred, tears dripping from my lashes.

“How long have you known? That I’m a monster. A _freak_.” Reiner shakes his head, and now there’s tears on his cheeks, dripping down in silence and sizzling in his heat blanket.

The night sky echoes from the howls of the hunters. I don’t want to know why they sound like wild animals, and how the hell they’re coming closer so fast.

“Jean,” Marco begs, reaching out to me with a shaky hand. His stars have gone as dim as back in the forest, and his knuckles around the metal are white. “Jean, let’s go, we have to leave – you don’t know them, don’t know what they can do.”

I open my mouth to protest, and that’s when Reiner takes his chance. He grabs me around my hips and moans as he lifts me onto the horse’s back, throwing my leg over the animal. The metallic construction shivers and the Equinculus bucks for a second, clockwork dinning.

Reiner touches the creature’s chest. “Carry them to Levi and Erwin,” he whispers and leans his forehead against the horse’s. “Take them away until your fire dies out.”

It’s only now that I realize a thing.

There’s one horse for me and one for Marco. Two, not three.

Reiner raises his other hand and opens his palm, pointing it towards Marco.

“Come alive.”

Flames blaze up in the Equinculi’s chests, their eyes glowing like crimson embers. The clockwork runs faster and faster. The animals throw up their heads, the golden mane dangling over my hands.

“What are you gonna do? Reiner, you – you’re not staying here, right? You’re coming with us.”

Everything I say sounds like it’s far away.

The whole sky is filled with screams and the ringing of weapons being slammed against each other.

“Jean, Jean,” Marco whispers behind me, broken little starchild.

Reiner steps back, shakes his head. His smile hasn’t faded, bright as always as flames creep up his face and set him aglow.

“I’ll slow them down.”

No. Oh god, no.

There’s a loud crashing sound from inside the smithy as someone – something – breaks through the front door.

Reiner holds me down in the saddle and presses his thumb to a nub on the horse. There’s a loud whirring. Two metal bars slide out of the horse’s insides and close over my legs, worm its way to my hip and snap shut. I panic like an animal caught in a trap. My hands slam in all directions, I kick and scream and it’s only when Reiner slaps his hand over my mouth that I shut up. A whimper escapes me, and I look at him through the sheen of tears.

Reiner’s forehead touches mine. That goddamn idiot is still smiling.

“You’ll be safe soon, and there’s someone to help you. You can go ahead and hate me if you want to.” He chuckles, the fire in his pupils flickering like it’s about to die.

And then, he says something that takes the last poor breath from my lungs.

(There’s heavy steps in the smithy, a dark voice bellowing commands that I can’t understand.)

Reiner’s voice sounds above it all, _in_ it all, in my head. “It was Marco,” he whispers. “His magic woke what slept inside you. And if a thing like me – something stronger, more powerful – would’ve woken it up… it would’ve attacked. It would’ve changed you, into something terrible, dark. I watched over you, and now you’re strong enough to find those who can help you. My work’s done. And you turned out a warrior, Jean.”

“No – no! _Reiner_ -!”

An explosion rips through the night sky, and the house next to the smithy goes up in flames. Marco’s horse jumps and rushes towards mine, and both of them start to move away from the smithy.

Reiner lets me go. He smiles, and the fire closes all over him until he’s nothing but an inferno of golden, roaring heat.

“Don’t let it win.” His voice is nothing but a smoky breeze as his fire spreads through the backyard. “You’re stronger than this thing. And watch out for the little star, will you?”

Marco screams, my own lungs shake in pain when I yell Reiner’s name. His silhouette vanishes in a giant cloud of flames and shadows as something breaches out of the smithy.

Our horses jump forward, and then Shiganshina is flying past us.

There’s a wild, insane cry hanging in the air, I barely hear that it’s me who’s still screaming like a madman.

The wind cuts into my skin and whirls through my hair, forcing me to press against the horse’s back that runs beneath me.

We chase through the alleys and streets, and the buildings around us are on fire.

Shiganshina burns.

The flames that devour the town are darker than the night sky, and as they swallow all light, the screams die out.

I can’t breathe. There’s blood in my mouth, my lips bitten raw.

Behind us, the smithy goes up in black fire.

As the town dies behind us, a shimmering figure of light rises into the sky. The dark flames swallow it up.

The scream in my lungs dies out.

The black fire devours the phoenix. As his golden flames vanish into emptiness, our horses pass the town gate and carry us into the Forest of Trost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **"The secret is out.  
> **  
>  **Goodbye."**  
>  \---
> 
> Comments and kudos are much appreciated and loved ♥


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